VUKANI GETS E/CAPE ROUTE LICENCE The Eastern Cape Gambling and Betting Board has awarded a route operate licence to Vukani Gaming Eastern Cape (Pty) Limited. The Board’s decision is subject to certain conditions. The main financial interest in Vukani Gaming Eastern Cape is held by Vukani Gaming (Pty) Ltd, the ultimate shareholder of whom is Hosken Consolidated Investments Ltd, a black empowerment company with various interests. 15% of the shares of Vukani Gaming Eastern Cape are held by Yaounde Investments (Pty) Ltd, an empowerment company based in the Eastern Cape with local empowerment shareholders. There is no management company involved in the application. As part of its bid commitments Vukani Gaming Eastern Cape made commitments which include a payment of R500 000 towards education in the Eastern Cape and the payment of a percentage of its gross profits to a Trust benefiting people in the Eastern Cape. The Board originally received two applications for the two route operator licences available. The Board has delivered final deliberation on the other application, which was received from Luck Al It (Eastern Cape) (Pty) Limited, pending the receipt of further outstanding information and hopes to be in a position to deliberate on this application soon. Most sites will have three to five machines but a limited number of sites located more than 50 kilometres from casinos may operate up to 40 machines. Although national legislation provides for up to 6000 limited gambling machines in Eastern Cape Province, the Board has resolved to limit this to 2000 machines at this time, with further machines not being considered unless a socio-economic impact study shows that this is advisable. Legislation also regulates the spread of machines so as to ensure they are not all placed in one area and seeks to ensure that 60% of machines are located on premises controlled by historically disadvantaged individuals. Licences are issued for seven years. The licensing process for sites has not yet commenced and a Request for Proposal for site licenses will only be issued once the route operator process has reached the stage where licences can be issued. The Eastern Cape has become the third province in South Africa to have reached the point where route operator licence applications are deliberated on.

Source: Gaming for Africa – August/September 2004