Luckia obtains license to operate online gambling in Colombia

"Colombia is the first country in the Americas to regulate online gambling. There are already eight websites offering legal online gambling: wplay.co, betplay.com.co, colbet.co, zamba.co, codere.com.co, mijugada.co, masgol.co and now luckia.co", explained Pérez Hidalgo.

The license was granted to Luckia Colombia S.A.S. for a five-year term and the estimated value of the agreement amounts to $ 11,191,089,273 Colombian pesos (approximately USD 3,800,000).

"Companies are having increasingly higher expectations about the online gambling industry in Colombia, with a regulation that allows those who meet the financial, technical and legal requirements established by Coljuegos, to enter into this market," added Pérez Hidalgo.

He added that one of the reasons that led investors and players to take part in online betting is the elimination of the Value-Added Tax in the 2016 Tax Reform, which has allowed operators to offer competitive gambling, which favors the legal market.

"As of December 2017, official data reveals that there are 212,866 players registered in the different authorized online operators, and 95% of them are currently active. Likewise, online gambling licenses generated $ 5.362.000.000 (USD 1.865.820) in revenues in 2017," remarked the president of Coljuegos.

"Each of the authorized operators complies with the requirements needed so that gamblers in Colombia can place their bets safely in online gaming platforms that guarantee prize payments, the proper and safe management of personal and financial information and the control of problem gambling with the implementation of individual limits," he added.

Finally, he highlighted that Coljuegos -with the aid of the National Police and the Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies- will continue to control the blocking of unauthorized websites and will try to increase the number of licensed operators: "We want that more interested companies obtain the authorization of Coljuegos to be online gambling operators, so as to shape a strong industry and tune it with new technologies. We have already blocked 325 pages that operated illegally."