The region's authorities played a significant role on the first day

Juegos Miami has shown Latin America's interest in online gambling and sports betting

At 10 a.m., the organizers of the event held what turned out to be the main conference of the day, with some of the most important regulators from the region.
2018-05-31
Reading time 3:29 min
Juegos Miami's third edition opened its doors yesterday and offered a broad space for debate among gambling regulators from Colombia, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Puerto Rico, who participated in a panel and a series of roundtables, together with almost 200 businessmen, executives and government authorities throughout the region.

At the opening of the event, Evert Montero Cárdenas, president of Colombian trade body Fecoljuegos and chairman of Juegos Miami, welcomed all the attendees and introduced them to the Colombian market, comparing its current situation and volume with other important regional and international markets.

"In Colombia, we must work on improving the reputation of this industry and achieving greater flexibility in gambling regulations, so as to encourage legality and a more transparent industry supported by society as a whole," Mr. Montero Cárdenas said during his presentation, highlighting the graduality of the regulations imposed by the government, and the recognition of operators that work within a legal framework, as opposed to those who are the majority, still operating illegally.

"We have been working on a plan aimed at improving the reputation of games of chance in Colombia -added Mr. Montero Cárdenas-, it involves a study designed to unveil four interest groups' opinion on gambling: the financial sector, the media, operators, and the public. At the same time, we will carry out a series of roundtables, we will build an Economic Observatory on Gambling, and we will hold a new Great Week Forum in October, to show the public the outcome of these studies."

By the end of his presentation, the chairman spoke about online gambling in his country, noting that today there are nine licensed operators in Colombia, with 443,000 registered players and USD 104 M in sales as of March 2018. He pointed out that there are about 37 million football fans, and that they expect a 40 percent increase in the number of bets during the next month and a half, with 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia. This regulatory framework generated, to March 2018, resources for the health sector amounting to USD 3.1 M.

At 10 a.m., the organizers of the event held what turned out to be the main conference of the day, with some of the most important regulators from the region. Moderated by Karen Sierra-Hugues, GLI Manager of Government Relations and Business Development for Latin America and the Caribbean, Luis Gama, manager of the National Lottery of Uruguay and president of CIBELAE; Josefina Canale, head of the Provincial Institute of Gambling and Casinos of Mendoza (Argentina); Liliana Viveros, manager of New Businesses of Coljuegos (Colombia); Alexandre Manoel, from the Ministry of Finance in Brazil, and Jaime Irizarry, from the Puerto Rico gambling company.

The first topic discussed was taxation. "gambling taxation has to be dealt with very carefully, since if we only see half of the picture we are prone to making serious mistakes, by missing out on its consequences to the industry and private operators", assured Luis Gama. "If taxes are misapplied, it will end up benefiting illegal gambling. Some governments only take into account the resources generated by these decisions, and not the consequences of them, as in the case of Panama, which today has a better tax collection and its numbers seem to be much more positive, but it is seriously hindering private operations, which eventually leads to an expansion of the illegal market. It should be understood that both governments and businesses should benefit from this situation," added the head of the Lottery of Uruguay.

When dealing with the issue in Colombia, Liliana Viveros' presentation focused on its new online betting alternatives, noting that there are already nine licenses in operation and four still under analysis, and they expect that 15 companies will be operating by August, and about 20 by the end of this year. "We have achieved significant goals with the regulation of this segment: today online gambling is competitive in our country, we have achieved an open regulation and tax advantages for operators, and we have had great support from the regulator, so we are on a good path of development, "said Blanco.

 

Around noon, the organizers of the event held a series of roundtables, divided by countries, in which regulators, authorities, businessmen, and executives had the opportunity to share their views and opinions on each of the markets analyzed: Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Mexico.

After lunch, the event continued at the exhibition area, where about 20 companies showcased their products at small booths with a short number of attendees, such as Aristocrat, Novomatic, JCM, GLI, BetConstruct, Zuum, EGT, Sportradar and Interblock, Ainsworth, Merkur, Scientific Games and Everi.

By the end of the day, Juegos Miami, hosted a great welcome cocktail sponsored by Merkur Gaming, taking place at the Alhambra hall and the Biltmore terraces. It lasted about three hours, and had approximately 250 attendees, reinforcing the networking footprint of the event.

Today a wide range of conferences are expected to take place at Juegos Miami parallel auditoriums, as well as more networking spaces for executives and industry authorities. GIGSE's opening ceremony will also begin, which will be taking place together with this edition of Juegos Miami at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables.

Juegos Miami 2018

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