IGHAC was not formed to fill a bureaucratic gap. It was formed because the evidence on gambling harm has outpaced the institutional capacity to use it. IGHAC is that infrastructure, built specifically to close that gap, and it is active now.
An international advisory infrastructure in which gambling harm policy, clinical practice, and workplace standards are shaped by independent, rigorous evidence. Not by the interests of those who profit from gambling. Not by the funding priorities of bodies with competing agendas. By the evidence, made available to every decision-maker who needs it.
IGHAC's mandate has been international since incorporation, and its first work is deliberately South African. That is a sequence, not a contradiction, and it is worth stating plainly rather than leaving to inference.
A standard that has never been tested is an assertion. IGHAC builds and validates its instruments where it has the deepest operational access and the clearest evidence gap, which is the South African workplace, and extends them to other jurisdictions carrying reference data and a track record that makes adoption credible. South Africa has conducted no gambling prevalence study of any kind since 2012, and no jurisdiction anywhere has a mandatory workplace gambling harm standard. Those two facts define both the opening and the order of work.
IGHAC will say which jurisdictions it is working in, and what stage each relationship has reached, on the Partners page. Where a partnership has not been formed, that page says so.
IGHAC was registered as a Non-Profit Company under the Companies Act 71 of 2008. The registration was not an administrative milestone. It was the formalisation of work that had been building for two decades.
Free Me South Africa (FMSA), the founding partner, had spent years developing operational tools for workforce harm assessment, clinical classification using a structured harm escalation framework, and workplace policy design through the WGHRMS. What those tools lacked was an independent advisory body to anchor their evidence base, coordinate international research, and provide governance that no operator could influence.
That is what IGHAC is. Not a consultancy. Not a regulator. An independent advisory committee with a formal governance structure, a research mandate, and a membership architecture designed to sustain it.
FMSA and IGHAC are separate legal entities with separate governance structures. FMSA has no authority over IGHAC's research conclusions, advisory positions, or board decisions. The relationship is deliberate: FMSA contributes two decades of direct operational practice, data infrastructure, and clinical tool development. IGHAC provides the independent governance layer that validates, anchors, and publishes that work without commercial obligation to any party, including FMSA.
Operational expertise feeds the advisory body. The advisory body maintains its independence from the operational partner. That separation is not incidental. It is the design.
The industry has spent decades funding research that answers the questions it wants answered. IGHAC exists to fund and publish research that answers the questions that actually matter.
Founding Director, IGHACThe founding board was constituted with three appointed directors: a governance and legal specialist serving as Acting Chairperson, a technology and strategy director, and a youth and community director. Six independent seats remain open. The Chairperson role will transition to a permanent appointment through board resolution once an independent director is seated, as the Memorandum of Incorporation requires the Chairperson to be independent.
The clinical and operational experience underpinning IGHAC's founding framework spans twenty years of direct practice in gambling harm identification, family intervention, and workforce impact assessment. The data was always there. The infrastructure to house it now exists.
FMSA was registered as the operational entity, building the workforce assessment suite, the Harm Escalation Continuum (HEC), and the WGHRMS workplace policy framework. By year-end, the tools were built. The research mandate needed a separate, independent home.
International Gambling Harm Advisory Committee registered with CIPC as a Non-Profit Company (Reg. 2026/687049/08) under the Companies Act 71 of 2008. Nine-seat board structure constituted. Three founding directors appointed. Six independent seats reserved for external appointment.
The IGHAC public website launched at www.ighac.org. Participation enquiries opened. Board seat architecture adopted at nine seats, with six reserved as independent. Member platform in active development.
Target: the deceptive design audit of South African betting platforms, applying the published international taxonomy to an African market for the first time. Report and policy brief lodged with the National Gambling Board and the provincial regulators.
Target: the South African gambling advertising audit published as a research report and a policy brief, with a submission to the Advertising Regulatory Board. Academic host relationship formalised.
Target: first IGHAC study submitted to a peer-reviewed journal. IGHAC states submission rather than publication, because the timing of acceptance is decided by reviewers and editors and is not IGHAC's to commit to.
The IGHAC board is constituted as a nine-seat structure: three founding-appointed directors and six independent seats. Every director holds one full vote on every matter. A director with a personal financial interest in a specific matter declares it and recuses from that vote, as section 75 of the Companies Act 71 of 2008 requires. No single director holds an operational veto, and no funder or partner holds any right of review over an IGHAC publication.
A seat on the IGHAC board cannot be bought, sponsored, or obtained in exchange for a donation, a fee, or a commercial relationship of any kind. Seats are filled on professional standing against a published profile, by board resolution. Directors receive no remuneration in the first two years, and no seat is ever offered as a funding benefit. IGHAC is funded by donations, grants, and fees charged for services such as certification and training, never by seat occupancy.
A seat is a portfolio, an area of responsibility. The nine seats are listed below. An office is a function carried out on the board's behalf: Chairperson, Vice-Chairperson, Secretary and Treasurer. Offices are elected annually by the board from among the seated directors and carry no additional vote. The Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson must be independent directors.
Nine seats sits at the upper limit of the range permitted by IGHAC's Memorandum of Incorporation, which allows a minimum of three directors and a maximum of nine. Six of the nine seats are independent, a two-thirds majority.
Three of the nine seats are currently filled, and all three are founding seats. No independent seat has yet been filled, so IGHAC does not presently have an independent majority. The two-thirds figure describes the structure the board has adopted, not the board as it stands today. Filling the independent seats is the board's highest governance priority, and IGHAC states the position plainly rather than leaving it to be discovered.
Legal counsel and governance anchor. Brings statutory and constitutional expertise to IGHAC's compliance framework and board governance. Holds the office of Acting Chairperson pending election of a permanent Chairperson from among the independent directors.
Founding director representing Free Me South Africa, IGHAC's technical and strategic founding partner. Responsible for the technology relationship and international development. Declares an interest and recuses from any board decision concerning a transaction with FMSA, under section 75 of the Companies Act.
Founding director responsible for youth-facing programmes, student and campus initiatives, and community engagement strategy. Also serves as IGHAC's named research contact for academic and institutional enquiries.
Reserved for a published gambling harm researcher or a university-affiliated research lead. This is IGHAC's single highest-priority appointment, because most of the work on the research agenda requires an academic host before it can begin, and IGHAC as a non-profit company cannot itself hold ethics approval.
Reserved for a director with regulatory or public policy experience in gambling, health, or workforce wellbeing. Owns IGHAC's submissions to regulators and parliamentary committees, and the long-term objective of securing recognition for gambling harm education within the public benefit activities listed in the Ninth Schedule to the Income Tax Act.
Reserved for a senior psychiatrist, clinical psychologist, public health specialist or addiction researcher with recognised expertise in gambling-related harm. This seat carries specific responsibility for the clinical soundness of IGHAC's assessment frameworks and referral guidance, and no IGHAC instrument will be presented as clinically applicable without this seat filled.
Reserved for a director with conformity assessment or standards development experience, drawn from an international certification body, a national standards body, or a professional body operating a certification scheme. Owns the IGHAC standards series and the rules under which an organisation or an instrument is certified against it, including auditor competence and the route to formal accreditation.
Reserved for a person with direct lived experience of gambling harm, whether personally or as an affected family member. This is a full directorship carrying a full vote, not an advisory or consultative position. The seat holder chairs the Lived Experience Council described below, and the Council's position is tabled and minuted at every board meeting.
Reserved for a director with gambling governance or harm reduction standing in a jurisdiction outside South Africa, holding an academic, clinical, regulatory or civil society position. Not open to any person holding an executive, board or officer role in a gambling operator, an operator trade association, or an operator-funded body.
IGHAC's position is that lived experience should hold a vote rather than a hearing. The Companies Act 71 of 2008 requires a director to be a natural person carrying individual duties under section 76 and individual liability under section 77, so a single seat cannot be shared between several people. The structure that delivers the intent is one Lived Experience Director who chairs a Lived Experience Council of between four and eight members, all with direct lived experience of gambling harm.
Once the seat is filled, the Council will meet ahead of every board meeting, with its position tabled at that meeting and recorded in the minutes whether or not the board adopts it. The directorship will rotate every two years among Council members, so the seat carries more than one voice over time. Council members are not directors and carry no director liability. Neither the seat nor the Council is yet constituted.
IGHAC publishes its board by seat, mandate and professional profile rather than by individual name. That is a deliberate governance choice and not an omission. Individuals are named wherever a legal or operational duty requires it, and two are named on this site: IGHAC's designated Information Officer under section 55 of the Protection of Personal Information Act, and the named research contact for academic and institutional enquiries. Both appear on the contact page. Directors' full particulars are filed with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission under registration 2026/687049/08 and are available to any counterparty on formal written request, including any university research office conducting due diligence.
An organisation that claims transparent governance should be able to produce the documents that constitute it. The documents below are the ones IGHAC relies on when it describes itself as independent. They are being prepared for publication and are available in the meantime on written request, at no cost and without any participation requirement. IGHAC is not listing a download link before the file is there.
The signed board resolution prohibiting the acceptance of funding from gambling operators. This is the resolution that fixes IGHAC's independence, and IGHAC provides it in full on request so that the claim can be checked rather than taken on trust.
How IGHAC identifies, declares and manages conflicts of interest at board, staff and research level, including the standing declaration required of every director.
The rules governing how IGHAC research is commissioned, conducted, reviewed and published, including the position that findings are published as they stand and that no funder or partner holds any right of review, veto or pre-approval.
The terms on which IGHAC shares research data with academic partners and the conditions under which IGHAC will accept data from third parties.
IGHAC's full forward research pipeline, with study designs, sampling frames, ethics routes, indicative costs and funding strategy. Provided on request so that a prospective academic partner can see what IGHAC intends to do before deciding whether to collaborate.
A dated record of every contact between IGHAC and a licensed gambling operator, showing the date, the parties and the subject. IGHAC accepts no operator funding, so this register exists to make that verifiable rather than assertable.
IGHAC's independence is its most valuable asset and the thing most at risk from poorly structured relationships. These are the things IGHAC will not do, regardless of the financial offer or the identity of the organisation involved.
IGHAC accepts no funding from gambling operators for any purpose: not for research, not for specific studies, and not for general operations by way of restricted grant, sponsorship or donation. No participation route of any kind is available to operators, at any price, and no seat, office or committee position may be held by an operator, an operator trade association or an operator-funded body. This is fixed by founding board resolution, which is listed above and provided in full on request.
No partner, regardless of their contribution, may co-brand a research publication, advisory position or published standard. Partners may be acknowledged. They are not attributed authorship of IGHAC's independent outputs.
IGHAC does not take policy positions based on funder or partner preferences. Findings are published as they stand. No agreement includes any right of review, veto or pre-approval over an IGHAC publication.
Every figure IGHAC publishes carries a named primary source and a stated unit. Where IGHAC does not know something, it says so. Where IGHAC has published something incorrect, it corrects it in public and dates the correction.
| Governance Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Legal form | Non-Profit Company (NPC) under the Companies Act 71 of 2008. CIPC Reg. 2026/687049/08. |
| Board structure | Nine seats, the maximum permitted by the Memorandum of Incorporation. Three founding-appointed directors. Six independent seats filled by resolution and formal appointment. Three seats filled at present, all of them founding seats. |
| Seats and funding | No seat is sold, sponsored, or made available in exchange for a donation, fee, or commercial relationship. Directors are unremunerated in the first two years. |
| Standing committees | Three committees are provided for in the governance framework and none is yet constituted, because each depends on a seat that is still open. Finance and Audit Committee, to be chaired by a director and reporting to the full board. Data and Methods Committee, to report to the Research Director, responsible for anonymisation, scoring integrity and lawful data handling. Lived Experience Council, to be chaired by the Lived Experience Director. |
| Decision making | All material decisions require a board vote. No single director holds sole operational authority. |
| Director tenure | Independent directors serve three-year terms, renewable by board resolution. Founding directors continue until resignation or removal. |
| Chairperson | Permanent Chairperson to be appointed by board resolution. The Acting Chairperson (appointed by founding resolution) serves in the interim. |
| Resignation | Written notice to the Chairperson. 30-day notice period unless waived by board resolution. |
| Removal | By ordinary resolution of the Board, on the grounds set out in the Memorandum of Incorporation, or where a director becomes ineligible or disqualified under section 69 of the Companies Act 71 of 2008. Section 71(3) applies and the notice and hearing required by section 71(4) is not optional. |
| Members of the company | IGHAC has no members. The Memorandum of Incorporation is made under section 57(3)(d) of the Companies Act, and governance is vested exclusively in the Board. There is no membership that can be acquired, purchased or inherited, and no general meeting at which an outside party can vote. Participating organisations are participants, not members, and participation confers no governance right of any kind. |
| Financial transparency | Annual financial statements audited. Annual Report published. No participant, donor or partner holds board observer access, and observer access is not available as a benefit. |
| Funding sources | Three channels only: donations and grants, research grants, and fees charged for services such as certification, training and assessment. Where IGHAC certifies against its own standards, the fee schedule is published and set by the independent directors. |
| Operator funding | Prohibited by founding resolution. IGHAC does not accept funding from gambling operators or their representative bodies, and no operator, operator trade association or operator-funded body may hold a seat, office or committee position. |
IGHAC is actively building its independent board and its founding participant base. If you belong in this conversation, the pathway is straightforward.
How to participate