Super Group’s ZAR Supercoin: a payments experiment with African gambling at its core

Kevin Jones
4 days ago
8 min read

Super Group has launched ZAR Supercoin (ZARSC), a fully bank-backed, FSCA-regulated stablecoin built on Solana and designed initially for South Africa’s high-friction payments environment. Powered by Absa-held reserves, Luno distribution and a Q1 2026 wallet rollout, the token is positioned to become a low-fee, high-speed rail for Betway South Africa and everyday retail payments. With Africa contributing a significant share of Super Group’s revenue—and South Africa alone accounting for ~30–32%—the launch represents a strategic attempt to compress fees, improve customer engagement, and establish a blueprint for multi-currency stablecoins across the continent. Its success could reshape operator economics, PSP strategies, regulatory thinking and the future of local-currency tokenisation across African gambling markets.

Super Group’s move into stablecoins is not arriving as a speculative side-project bolted onto a casino brand. It is landing in Africa, the region that has become central to the Betway owner’s revenue and growth story, and it is being framed as core infrastructure rather than a marketing stunt.

With ZAR Supercoin (ZARSC), a rand-pegged stablecoin issued by newly-formed subsidiary Super Money SA, Super Group is testing whether a regulated, bank-backed digital currency can solve one of its most persistent operational headaches in the region: the cost and friction of moving money in and out of betting accounts.

The token formally launched in late November 2025 via a partnership with Luno, and the choice of South Africa as the proving ground is deliberate: South Africa contributes roughly 30-32% of Super Group’s total revenue, so any improvement to payments efficiency has group-level significance.

For operators, vendors and regulators across the continent, this is a concrete test-case of how deeply crypto-style rails can be embedded inside a mainstream, listed gambling group—and what that might mean for payments economics, compliance and customer behaviour.

What exactly has launched?

ZAR Supercoin is a South African rand-denominated stablecoin “purpose-built for South Africa and the wider African market” . It is listed publicly as ZARSC, and launched in cooperation with Luno, the country’s largest consumer crypto exchange.

Each token is redeemable 1:1 for rand, with reserves held in segregated accounts at Absa, one of South Africa’s major banks.

The issuer is Super Money SA, a newly-incorporated division of Super Group focused on blockchain-based products and payments. Crucially, it holds Category I & II Crypto Asset Service Provider (CASP) licences from the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), giving it explicit regulatory cover to issue stablecoins rather than rely on implied tolerance. The firm emphasises adherence to global best-practice KYC, KYB and AML, signalling that the initiative is designed to meet financial-services standards, not circumvent them.

On the technology side, ZARSC runs on the Solana blockchain, with issuance and lifecycle managed via the Fireblocks Tokenization Engine, and transaction-monitoring handled through Chainalysis Sentinel.

Distribution at launch includes a listing on Luno, with a dedicated Supercoin wallet planned for Q1 2026. The first merchant to accept it will be Betway South Africa.

Importantly, the wallet is described not simply as a gaming cashier, but as an accessible tool for everyday payments—including peer-to-peer transfers, remittances, airtime and bill purchases, small-merchant payments and more. Once operational, it will also allow users to withdraw cash from ATMs and pay via standard POS terminals, bringing it into mainstream retail-payments flows.

Why Africa, why now?

Africa has long been a growth engine for Super Group: in one recent period the continent plus Middle East region delivered roughly 40% of revenue. Within that, South Africa alone accounts for circa 30-32% of group revenue, a fact that makes efficient payments in that jurisdiction critical.

Cost is central to the logic. Banking and payments in many African markets remain inefficient and expensive. Super Group’s CEO, Neal Menashe, has described payments as “a really big cost in Africa”.

The numbers support this:

In many markets payments processing can cost 3–6% of deposit value, with ~5% a typical blended rate.
Crypto-rails can bring this closer to ~1%.
Because customers often deposit, cash out, redeposit, operators can end up paying the same fee multiple times on the same bankroll.

Super Group also cites Africa’s growing stablecoin activity—volumes across key markets estimated at $100 billion+—creating a behavioural baseline for change.

Regulatory change is subtly underway too. For example, Ghana’s central bank recently published a policy paper calling for “action-driven, collaborative regulation rather than outright bans”, suggesting that structured digital-currency models are becoming operationally acceptable.

Against this backdrop, the idea of a regulated, low-fee, high-speed coin tailored to African payments flows gains traction.

How Supercoin fits into Super Group’s gambling stack

Super Group has stated that Supercoin “will eventually provide payment options for customers using Betway”, with Betway South Africa as the first live merchant.

The token and wallet initiative align with several internal priorities:

Payments cost and speed

Shifting a portion of volumes from high-cost traditional rails to ~1% crypto rails has immediate margin implications in a region of high transaction volume.

Crypto-native customer segment

Management notes that crypto-native users tend to spend more and engage more deeply than average bettors, making Supercoin a potential acquisition and retention lever, not just a cost-cut.

Loyalty and cross-brand engagement

Supercoin is intended to act as a store of value across the Super Group ecosystem, enabling cross-platform flows between sportsbook, casino and potentially non-gaming payments.

Financial inclusion and broader fintech reach

Warren Ross, managing director of Super Money SA, says the goal is to make stablecoins “simple, useful and accessible, because we believe financial freedom should be for everyone”. This suggests the wallet is positioned not only for gamers, but for underserved segments of the South African economy.

The combination of cost-control, deeper customer engagement, new segments and a broader payments product suggests Supercoin could evolve into a closed-loop payments rail extending beyond purely gambling.

Regulatory and compliance lens

From a regulatory perspective, ZAR Supercoin is being structured as a regulated financial-services product, not a fringe crypto experiment.

Key aspects include:

CASP Categories I & II licences give Super Money legal issuance capacity.
Backing via Absa gives the token institutional credibility.
Chainalysis monitoring and firm statements about global-best-practice KYC/KYB/AML position it within mature fintech norms.

Gambling regulators will take note: jobs of licence-holders include scrutiny of deposits, withdrawals, AML, fraud and player protection. The stablecoin’s regulated structure and on-chain observability mean Super Group is pre-positioning for that scrutiny rather than bypassing it.

Super Group says it will expand only “in line with local regulatory frameworks”—in other words, the South African model (CASP licensing + bank custody + on-chain monitoring) may be treated as a template for new jurisdictions.

Elsewhere in Africa regulatory postures are shifting: US dollar stablecoins are raising “pseudo-dollarisation” concerns, and a locally-pegged, bank-backed coin could align better with policymakers.

Competitive and ecosystem implications

ZAR Supercoin enters the nascent rand-stablecoin sector. Existing players include ZARP (Old Mutual-backed) and yZAR (Mesh Trade-issued, offering ~5% yield).

What differentiates ZARSC:

Backed by a NYSE-listed operator (Super Group) with a ~US$6.3 bn market cap.
FSCA-licensed via CASP framework.
Reserves held at Absa.
Positioned for integration into a major gambling brand.

Super Group’s internal estimate of ~$100 bn+ stablecoin transaction volumes across Africa and its thesis that ~1% rails can shift margin change the calculus for PSPs, banks and operators alike.

The company also signals a multi-currency stablecoin strategy: issuing a coin per local market (NGN, KES, etc) on the same tech stack. That implies long-term standardisation of its payments stack across multiple jurisdictions.

The go-to-market sequence is equally instructive: Luno → Wallet → Betway → Wider merchant/fintech network. This phased “partner-first” rollout reduces build-risk and regulatory drag, and threatens to reshape how PSPs and banks view operator payments strategies.

ZAR Supercoin at a glance

Dimension	Detail
Issuer	Super Money SA, a newly-formed subsidiary of Super Group (SGHC)
Regulatory licences	FSCA-authorised Crypto Asset Service Provider (CASP), Categories I & II
Asset type	Rand-pegged stablecoin, redeemable 1:1 for South African rand
Fiat backing	Reserves held in segregated accounts at Absa
Blockchain	Solana, with Fireblocks Tokenization Engine and wallet infrastructure
Compliance monitoring	Chainalysis Sentinel for token ecosystem risk monitoring
Launch & ticker	Launched late November 2025, listed as ZARSC
Initial exchange	Luno, with international exchange listings planned
First betting merchant	Betway South Africa (via Supercoin wallet in Q1 2026)
Strategic goals	Reduce payments cost, deepen loyalty, enable cross-platform benefits
Economic angle	Aim to shift from 3–6% deposit-processing cost to ~1% with repeated-flow effects

Stakeholder-specific analysis

Operators

ZAR Supercoin offers a live model for how a regulated, closed-loop payments rail could be embedded in a gambling stack. The probability that an operator will need a position on this kind of token is rising. The focus is as much on efficiency and customer value as on novelty.

Vendors / payment providers

PSPs will be asked to integrate stablecoin rails, on-chain telemetry and wallet-banks interplay. Vendors who support interoperability—crypto↔fiat↔mobile money—and cross-border rails will be advantaged.

Banks

Banks may face migration of volumes from cards/EFT to tokenised rails, but they can also partner as custodians (as Absa is doing) or as off-ramp infrastructure.

Investors

For investors, this is a margin-story, not a pure crypto-play. Given South Africa’s ~30-32% revenue share, any proven reduction in fees, improved retention of crypto-native users or wallet adoption could materially move group returns. Metrics to watch: wallet uptake, shares of deposits via Supercoin, failed-transaction rates, blended cost per transaction and margin lift.

Regulators / compliance leads

Regulators should view ZAR Supercoin as a regulated stablecoin experiment within a gaming operator’s payments stack. The fact it holds CASP licences, bank-backed reserves and on-chain monitoring puts it in a different risk-category to un-regulated crypto offerings. But regulators will still watch: KYC completeness, affordability, AML/TF risk, cross-border flows and how stablecoin usage changes player behaviour.

Forward-looking signals and open questions

Near-term milestones

Late 2025: ZARSC launch on Solana + Luno listing.
Q1 2026: Supercoin wallet launch; Betway South Africa accepts Supercoin.

Beyond South Africa: a phased multi-currency model

Super Group has told analysts it will expand ZAR Supercoin to other African countries, potentially issuing local-currency stablecoins built on the same tech stack. Management flags a significant technical lift per currency, hence the preference to “start in one country and then move” and keep expansion tightly aligned with local regulatory frameworks.

Open questions

Customer adoption curve — Will users adopt ZARSC at scale or treat it as niche?
Regulatory feedback loop — How will gambling regulators respond when stablecoin-based flows appear in operator data?
Geographic expansion — Will Super Group issue new tokens per currency (NGN, KES) or rely on the rand-token cross-border?
Industry standard vs proprietary rail — Will other operators accept ZARSC or will multiple proprietary stablecoins fragment the market?

For operators, vendors, regulators and investors—the launch of ZAR Supercoin is the clearest signal yet that tokenised payments infrastructure is moving from deck slides into live deployment inside one of the major gambling groups operating in Africa.

If Super Group proves that a regulated, low-fee, high-speed stablecoin materially changes the economics of African gambling payments, the wider industry will have to respond.

Stakeholder implications at a glance

Stakeholder group	Immediate implication	Medium-term question
Operators	Need a position on accepting or ignoring ZAR Supercoin and similar regulated stablecoins	Do proprietary or shared tokens become a standard payments rail?
Payment vendors	Pressure to integrate stablecoin rails, on-chain risk data and new wallets into existing platforms	Can vendors monetise integration and risk services around these rails?
Banks	Face potential migration of transaction volume off card rails into tokenised, wallet-based flows	Do banks lean in as custodians and partners, or risk disintermediation?
Regulators	Must interpret stablecoin use inside regulated gambling flows, starting with South Africa	Will they set a template other African regulators adopt or resist?
Investors	Gain a new lens on how Super Group intends to protect margin and grow in Africa	Does Supercoin materially shift group economics over a 3–5 year view?