A casino is in fear for its licence because it NEVER got the Royal seal of approval.

The Wild Coast Sun casino was set up almost 30 years ago in the former Transkei homeland, a region set up by apartheid South Africa to enable “Separate Development” for the country’s various races.

Now an African king is claiming that the casino’s original licence was illegal because he was excluded from the original negotiations.

Royal Role

King Mpondombini Sigcau also claims that more than £2,000 meant to have been paid by casino owners Sun International into a fund to help his amaMpondo nation never materialised.

The clash between king and casino comes to a head tomorrow as the Eastern Cape Gambling and Betting Board meets to hear Sun International’s application.

The casino says it complied with the Gambling Act in the original 1979 application and questions how Sigcau and the amaMpondo nation should have been included anyway.

Unfair Shares

Lawyers for the king say the board must examine the lease of the land –- already under investigation in the early 1990s –- and why the £2,000 trust payment never happened.

They also want back rent and a probe into Sun International’s agreement to sell at least 40 per cent of its shares under a deal in October 1992 with the post-apartheid government.

The Wild Coast Sun casino deal was first signed on March 9, 1979, between Sun International and the then homeland government amid claims of bribery and corruption.