"If we were in a purely legal environment, VAT on gambling deposits in Colombia should not exist"

SBC Summit Americas 2025 was held a few days ago at the Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, an event that gathered thousands of gaming industry professionals from North, South, and Central America.

Within the framework of this exhibition, Yogonet spoke with Julio César Tamayo, President of the Colombian operator WPlay. The executive participated as a speaker in two panels of the SBC Americas conference program: "LATAM LEADERS - Beyond Brazil: balancing growth in the other Latin American markets" and "Focus on Colombia: Taxes and Innovation".

During the interview, Tamayo spoke about the present state of the Colombian industry and his company and highlighted the growth of the local market over the last eight years. He also stated that, under a purely legal framework, and not ideological or political, the 19% VAT, implemented by President Petro at the beginning of the year and which will be in force until the end of 2024, should not exist, least of all by taxing deposits.

What can you tell us about WPlay's current standing in Colombia at the moment?

I will start with the current market situation and then with that of the company. In Colombia, one might think that it is a mature market, but when comparing 2023 with 2024, there was a 30% growth rate in tax payments, which means that the market is still growing greatly.

There is a peculiarity, and it is that 90% of the market is held by three platforms. There are 15 operators, and we believe that, since 2017, Colombian regulations have proven to be very effective. The operators that were there in 2017 paid USD 1.5 million in taxes, while in 2024, we closed with USD 100 million in taxes to Coljuegos, and we positioned ourselves as 40% of the state revenues collected by Coljuegos.

As for WPlay, after the integration with our international partner, the past year has been very successful for us, a year of great satisfaction for the partners, consolidation of the company, and market recovery.

Looking back since your debut, are you where you wanted to be at this moment, or do you have a higher target than that?

At the beginning, we had the same doubts that everyone had, namely, how the transition from an unregulated market to a regulated one was going to be, in other words, how effective the transfer of players playing in unregulated platforms to regulated ones was going to be.

As for the initial projections, those of us who were pioneers in the industry in Colombia never really grasped the magnitude of the market. For example, in 2024, Colombia registered USD 680 million of GGR, and that gave USD 100 million of taxes for the state. So, for the magnitude of the growth of the industry until last year, without the regulation of 2025, one must be extremely satisfied, especially if within the three platforms that have 90% of the market, that is, on the side of WPlay. We are in a very important moment for our evolution.

Regarding the current regulations and new taxes that have been established, how has that impacted WPlay's daily operation?

First, it should be said that Colombia is a pioneer country, and it was very successful because the regulations were very effective and led to the growth of the market. As we had mentioned, going from USD 1.5 million in collections for the state in 2017 to USD 100 million now in 2024 is a figure that speaks of the effectiveness of the regulation.

In 2024, a regulation was introduced in relation to marketing restrictions, where the platforms could choose between investing USD 3 million or investing 20% of the GGR. So the platforms that have a high GGR can invest 20% of their GGR for the following year. That already put us in another condition, a new reality. We understood the state's reasons because of the amount of advertising noise.

Since last year, a tax reform has been projected. In 2025, we started with the surprise of an internal commotion in Colombia, in which we became an important source of tax collection, and we were taxed with a VAT of 19% of the deposit. It is neither to the bets nor to the GGR, it is 19% of the deposit. By market logic, when the user deposits COP 100, the regulation says that the 19% VAT is already included and the user is left with COP 84 in his wallet balance, which means 100 divided by 1,19.

This in itself has a big impact on the player, because to match their initial balance, they would have to play at a 1.19 odds to recover their outgoing, their initial total deposit. But in Colombia, due to the logic of the market, what we operators did was to replenish with bonuses directly to the wallet. There is a figure called Bono Liberado to the user's direct wallet that compensates them for what is deducted from their balance due to VAT, because we always understood that this rule was temporary.

This rule, as it stands today, is in force until December 31 of this year. It may be overturned by the Constitutional Council or the Constitutional Court, which may rule on it on June 25. Everything points to the fact that, if we were in a purely legal environment, not ideological or political, this rule should not exist today, and much less taxing the deposit, when deposits are not income for the company, and VAT in Colombia is a value-added tax. A deposit is not a value added for the company. The value added for Colombia is the GGR, which is USD 680 million for the year 2024.

Aside from Colombia, where you have an important market share, have you analyzed in the medium or long-term future, to expand beyond this country, into markets such as Brazil, for example?

Due to international agreements, our brand is exclusively for Colombia as wplay.co. Our partners do have the freedom to be in markets other than Colombia, and some of them already have operations in several Latin American countries.

I believe that Colombia's experience has been able to impose itself through the Colombian partners. By the way, this is paradoxical, because in Colombia, of the 15 operators, almost all are foreign, and of the three that dominate the market, two are of local origin and founded by local partners. Therefore, we have no pretensions today of directly entering another country as a brand.

During the last two or three years, there has been a very big impact of new technologies in the sector, including artificial intelligence. Has WPlay implemented any of these tools, and how do you use them?

Initially, according to my experience, I had seen that artificial intelligence was already being applied in the operational part of companies, especially for risk control.

Now, there are applications for marketing, in other words, an artificial intelligence buys the programmatic for you and makes the balance of the marketing investment. In that case, we haven't applied it yet, but it's one of the coming trends.

I have also seen some artificial intelligence applied to help the user make a decision in terms of markets, valued quotas, and informed choices. But in the platforms we currently have, artificial intelligence today is mainly applied to risk control.