Skip to content
Random SystemsSouth Africa

Platform

National Platform for Countering Illegal Online Gambling

A closed loop that runs from the first appearance of an illegal site to a measured, quarterly-reported effect on the market — with every step evidenced and every decision attributable to a named official.

Operating model

Eight steps, one continuous cycle

Each step feeds the next and the last feeds the first. Nothing in the loop depends on a manual hand-off between organisations.
  1. 01Detect
  2. 02Enrich
  3. 03Score
  4. 04Decide
  5. 05List
  6. 06Enforce
  7. 07Verify
  8. 08Measure

    1. Detect

      Continuous discovery from certificate transparency logs, newly registered domain feeds, search APIs, passive DNS, advertising libraries, app store catalogues, typosquat generation and public complaints. Discovery runs constantly rather than in response to a report.

    1. Enrich

      Within five minutes: registration data, DNS history, infrastructure and hosting, full page and screenshot capture as seen from inside the country, payment methods offered and localisation signals such as language, currency and local payment rails.

    1. Score

      Deterministic, fully logged rules produce the score. An optional machine-learning ranking layer can order the queue by likely severity, but it can never be the sole basis for a decision and its contribution is recorded separately.

    1. Decide

      An authorised official lists the domain. The analyst who prepared the recommendation cannot approve it; the system refuses the action rather than relying on the official to remember the rule.

    1. List

      The decision is published to a signed, versioned register within fifteen minutes, carrying the stated reasons and the statutory citation on which it rests. Every version of the register remains retrievable.

    1. Enforce

      Five simultaneous pressure points: access, payment, advertising, app distribution and hosting infrastructure. Acting on one alone leaves the operator's economics intact; acting on all five together does not.

    1. Verify

      Probes inside the country confirm the block actually held — at every provider, every day. A block that was configured but not applied is treated as a block that failed.

    1. Measure

      Channelisation, false-positive rate and provider implementation are reported quarterly, so the programme is judged on measured effect rather than on the number of entries in the register.

Architecture

Three registers, one framework

The registers are interconnected rather than parallel. A domain decision immediately gives a bank grounds to act, and a change in licence status automatically changes a domain's legal status.

Licensed operators

The authoritative record of who holds a licence, for which products, under which conditions and for what period. Everything else in the framework resolves against it.

Illegal websites

Domains and applications listed by official decision, with sealed evidence, stated reasons and statutory citation attached to each entry.

Payment merchants

Merchant identities and acquiring relationships associated with listed operators, so that the financial channel can be addressed alongside the access channel.

Scope

Boundaries we set deliberately

These limits are design decisions. They keep the platform proportionate, keep it out of citizens' private communications, and make it far easier for providers and oversight bodies to accept.

  • It does not inspect citizens' traffic and performs no deep packet inspection. Detection works from public and commercial signals about operators, not from observation of players.

  • It does not process players' personal data inside the enforcement perimeter. The enforcement environment concerns operators, domains, infrastructure and payments.

  • It does not install state equipment inside provider networks. There is no appliance to procure, house, power or maintain.

  • The provider applies the block on its own resolvers using a standard response policy zone, which requires no new equipment and remains entirely under the provider's operational control.

Request a technical briefing