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Her name is Noma. Thirty-eight, mother of one, part-time admin assistant at a dental practice in Mthatha. She doesn’t drink. She doesn’t post. She doesn’t go out unless it’s necessary. Her circle is small. Two friends from church, her older sister in East London, and her daughter, Andiswa, who turned nineteen this winter and started her second semester at Walter Sisulu University. The tuition came to just under R12,000. It was due in March. And somehow, with nothing but an outdated Huawei and a prepaid SIM card, Noma paid every cent using a betting app she never told anyone about.
She doesn’t call it gambling. Not out loud. To her, it’s something closer to puzzle-solving. Prediction. Rhythm. It started two years ago, during the quieter months of lockdown. Her hours were cut. The practice stayed open, but only for emergencies. With the extra time, she scrolled. Mostly recipe videos, WhatsApp chain messages, and sermons sent through by her church group. One day, an ad popped up. Something about bonus spins. She ignored it. Then it appeared again. Same colours, different promise. “Play with R5. Win R5,000.” The numbers didn’t matter. What caught her was the word “play.” And she hadn’t played in a long time.
She downloaded the app late that night. Her daughter was asleep. She used R20 airtime to fund her first account. The platform was slick, overwhelming, bright. The reels spun too fast. The colours clashed. But after half an hour, she found something slower. Something called “Electric Bingo.” It felt more familiar. Calmer. The mechanics didn’t scare her. Tap to spin. Watch. Wait. Try again. She lost the first R20 in five minutes. Closed the app. Uninstalled it. But two days later, she came back. And this time, she started to watch it differently.
Noma is not reckless. Everything she does is with caution sharpened by experience. She had Andiswa at nineteen. Moved back in with her mother. Raised her alone. Saved every receipt. Cut coupons. Worked weekends. She doesn’t trust easily, not men, not contracts, not promises. But this game, this app, it gave her something she hadn’t had in years, a space to think only of now. She never bet more than R50 at a time. Never chased losses. She logged every session in a notebook with blue ink. Date, amount, result, notes. She began to notice patterns. Which games paid out slower. Which ones drained airtime fastest. Which times of day felt “luckier,” though she never said the word.
By the end of 2024, she’d made over R6,000. Nothing explosive. Just steady. R100 here. R350 there. She withdrew sparingly. Enough to buy data bundles. Then groceries. Then, in February, with Andiswa’s tuition invoice lying open on the table, she made a decision. She stopped playing. Not forever, but long enough to assess. Her account had just over R4,000 in it. Not enough. But close. She started waking up earlier. Played for thirty minutes before work, when the house was quiet, before the world came rushing in. She kept winning. Not always. But enough.
By mid-March, she had R11,840. She walked to the bank and paid the fees in cash. No one asked where the money came from. No one ever does when you’re quiet, polite, and don’t look like a story. She went home, cooked dinner, ironed her daughter’s jeans for the next day, and deleted the app again. She told herself it was over. She’d done what she came to do.
But it wasn’t quite over. Not really. There’s a drawer in her bedroom that holds the receipts. Cash deposit slips, handwritten notes, some of the printed T&Cs she downloaded from the app and studied like contracts. It’s not pride that keeps them there. It’s proof. That when everything else felt unmanageable, she found a way.
Andiswa doesn’t know the full story. She knows her mother is “good with money.” Knows they don’t have DSTV but the fridge is always full. She thinks the tuition came from a relative, or maybe some government support Noma never explained. Noma hasn’t corrected her. She wants her daughter to focus on studies, not systems. Wants her to walk forward without looking sideways at where the scaffolding came from.
There’s something powerful in the way Noma holds her silence. She doesn’t see herself as brave. Just practical. She’s aware of the risks. She’s read the horror stories, people who’ve lost jobs, families, whole salaries to this thing. But she also knows what it’s like to stand at the till, counting coins, pretending it’s fine. Knows what it’s like to ask for an extra week on school fees and be told no. Knows the weight of being the only line between your child and the void.
She hasn’t played in months. Says she probably won’t again. But sometimes, late at night, she scrolls through the app store, looking at new icons, reading reviews. Not because she’s planning a comeback, but because that time, those weeks in early 2025, showed her something. That she could outthink a system built to consume. That she could win without anyone knowing. That she could provide, quietly, completely, with no one to thank but herself.
There’s no moral here. No angle. No ad. Just one woman, one phone, and the stillness of a choice no one else had to carry. She wins in silence. She always has.
