A week before South Africa's local elections on 4 November, Polymarket, the US crypto-based prediction market, is running markets on who will be mayor in all eight metros, TechCentral reported on 27 October. About $379,000 had traded across them, including $135,000 on Johannesburg and $11,700 on Cape Town, though volume counts the same money each time it is traded again.
What the market says
- Cape Town: Geordin Hill-Lewis (DA) at 96%.
- Johannesburg: Helen Zille at 52%.
- Buffalo City: Princess Faku at 63%; Mangaung: Bongani Mathae at 55%.
- Tshwane: Cilliers Brink at 42%, ahead of Nasiphi Moya at 31%.
- eThekwini, Nelson Mandela Bay and Ekurhuleni: no candidate above 38%.
Thin markets can mislead. Bloomberg reported in July that election markets on Polymarket and Kalshi can be moved cheaply, citing a California governor's race where Polymarket briefly priced a candidate at 96% while polls had him near 4%, TechCentral noted.
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No South African regulator oversees Polymarket, and South African law allows online betting only through bookmakers and totalisators licensed by provincial gambling boards, with nothing that covers prediction markets, according to TechCentral. South Africa is not on Polymarket's restricted list, unlike the US, the UK and Zimbabwe, where users can close positions but not open new ones.
Licensed bookmakers want that changed. In a position paper on 27 July, after News24 reported that more than R700,000 had been wagered on Johannesburg's mayoral race, the South African Bookmakers' Association (Saba) said "betting prediction markets cannot and should not be authorised to operate in South Africa", iGaming Business reported. Saba calls them exchange-style betting products, says the country has a "substantial regulatory blind spot" in detecting manipulation, and argues that the revenue leaves without paying meaningful tax.
Its recommendations: treat prediction markets as part of the illegal market until a dedicated law exists, review gambling, financial and anti-money-laundering rules before any licence, and hold platforms to the same standards as betting exchanges so they cannot avoid gambling rules by calling themselves forecasting markets.
