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# Sun International is riding South Africa’s gambling boom, growing its casinos while cutting jobs at the same time
- URL: https://www.businessbagel.com/sun-international-casino-growth-section-189a/
- Published: 2026-09-08T02:45:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-08T02:44:59.000Z
- Description: The group used its best casino numbers in three years to disclose a retrenchment process it has been running since July.
- Author: Christian Maidman
- Tags: Companies, Business Bagel News

The retrenchments at Sun International were not news to everyone. Moneyweb reported in July that the group had begun a formal process under section 189A of the Labour Relations Act, and at the time Sun International said only its four smallest casinos were affected and that it had told the market nothing because no material outcome had been confirmed. On Monday it told the market, inside the same document that carried its best casino numbers in three years.

What was disclosed is wider than what was described in July. The group says a low-cost operating model at smaller, underperforming properties, which it calls the Casino Lite project, together with the centralisation of its technology and marketing functions, has taken it into formal consultation. Talks have also started in certain head office functions. It named no property and gave no number, out of a workforce that stood at 7,222 people at the end of last year.

## The casinos that finally grew

Land-based casinos are why the announcement was not simply bad news. That business, which brings in more than half of what the group takes in, grew income 1.5% to R3.4 billion, its first growth in three years, after Sun International put 876 new slot machines and stadium games on its floors. Its share of the land-based market climbed 2.3 percentage points, to just under half.

Online is where the growth rate lives. Sunbet, the group's betting and casino app, lifted income 35.5% to R1.2 billion, close to double the growth of the national online gaming market, and it now produces about a quarter of group operating cash earnings. Sun Slots, the machines in pubs and shops, went marginally backwards.

## The dividend went up anyway

Shareholders were not asked to wait. The board lifted the interim dividend 7.6% to 185 cents a share, keeping to its rule of handing back three-quarters of adjusted earnings, and bought back about 2% of the company's shares during the half. Margins went the other way: the group now keeps 24.1 cents of every rand it takes in, a little less than it kept a year ago, which it puts down to deliberate spending on technology, capability and winning customers.

Saccawu, the largest union across Sun International's workforce, says departments were cut before consultation with organised labour had concluded, and has said it is weighing an urgent application to the Labour Court to stop the process. The company says it is being run with fairness, transparency and respect. It has also told the market that trading since June has run ahead of its own 6% to 8% guidance range.