Free online poker in South Africa

The Temple of Fortune deals No-Limit Hold’em at tables for five or nine. Start at the Scribes’ Table — blinds of 50/100, buy-in from 1,000 to 20,000 debens — and move up to the Priests’ and the Pharaoh’s when your purse allows. You get 15 seconds a move, and a slider with Min, ½ pot, ¾, Pot and Max helps you size bets on a small screen.

Computer players fill empty seats and wear an “AI” tag. To play with your own crowd, a saved character opens a private table and shares the code. Texas Hold’em rules.

Many bingo halls in South Africa today are rows of electronic terminals. The Hall of Seshat is the older kind: one drum, one board of numbers and everyone in the hall waiting for the same ball. It plays 75-ball bingo, with 30% of the pot for the first line and 70% for the full card. Bingo rules.

Roulette in the Rotunda of Shai uses the single-zero wheel: 37 pockets, a number pays 35 to 1, and the table keeps hot and cold numbers — though every spin is independent. Roulette.

Blackjack in the Hall of Thoth: six decks, the dealer stands on soft 17, blackjack pays 3 to 2, and the dealer checks for blackjack before you double or split. Blackjack.

Sevens of Ra, Book of Thoth and Treasures of Horus stand side by side in the Treasury of Ra: a classic three-reeler, a book slot with ten free spins, and a Hold & Win game with four jackpots. Bets go from 100 to 50,000 debens a spin, and every machine returns about 95% over time. The slots.

The ten South African players with the most experience this week, under their game names. Only those who chose to show their country appear.

Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria, Bloemfontein — a city appears here once a player picks it under My city. If your town isn’t in the search, choose the nearest city or just the country.

1. Open the game in your browser and play as a guest straight away.
2. Save your character with an email and a password when you are ready — it adds 500,000 debens and lets you play on any device.
3. Open your profile, choose My city and find your city in South Africa.

South Africa’s National Gambling Act 7 of 2004 treats a game as gambling when it is played for consideration with the chance of a pay-out — money, credit, property or anything else of value. Section 11 forbids offering an interactive game, meaning an online one, unless it is licensed. That is why provincial boards license online sports betting but not online casinos.

Anubis City pays nothing out: debens and ankhs can’t be cashed out, sold or exchanged for money or goods, and nothing in the game is for sale. The Act’s definitions are broad, though, and no regulator has said how they apply to free social games, so we can’t give you a firm answer. This is our reading, not legal advice — we are not lawyers. Anubis City is for adults aged 18 and over.