Operator News
Chile – SJC completes evaluation of five municipal casinos
By Phil - 4 June 2018
The Deciding Council of the Chilean Gaming Board (SJC) has completed the technical bid evaluation for five municipal casino licences.
The SJC announced that the Deciding Council, chaired by the Undersecretary of Finance, Francisco Moreno Guzmán, had unanimously ratified the technical bid proposals for casinos in the communes of Iquique, Coquimbo, Viña del Mar, Pucón and Puerto Varas. The Council also reported the scores for each applicant reporting that each had met with the minimum score requirement as established by law. The score had to be at least 60 per cent of the total possible score in order to go forward.
The companies which are going through to the next round in Pucón are Casino de Juegos Pucón S.A. with 729.54 points and Casino del Lago S.A. with 862.95 points. In Puerto Varas Casino de Puerto Varas S.A. with 749.55 points and Casino de Juegos Puerto Varas S.A. with 790.36 points both go forward. There is just one bidder for Iquique: Entretenimientos Iquique S.A. with 814.43 points. For Coquimbo both Casino de Juegos Coquimbo S.A. with 808 points and Casino de la Bahía S.A. with 754.06 points go forward to the next round. For the casino in Viña del Mar there are three bidders: Casino del Mar S.A., with 744.19 points, Entretenimientos Viña del Mar S.A., with 731.43 points and Casinos de Juegos Viña del Mar S.A., with 743.20 points.
Now that the evaluation is completed and the scores awarded, the SJC must now call a hearing for the financial stage of the bidding process. In the hearing for the financial stage of the bidding process a representative of the Deciding Council will open the envelopes that contain the financial offers of those applicants which have made it to the next stage. The licence will be awarded to the operator that has submitted the highest financial offer. Those interested in putting in an offer must guarantee minimum economic offers according to the special conditions defined by the SJC’s Deciding Council. The highest amount is for Viña de Mar the guaranteed minimum offer of which stands at UF 596,170 per year. The UF is defined as the amount of currency units, or pesos, necessary for Chileans to buy a representative basket of consumer goods. For Iquique, it stands at UF 200,644 thousand per year; Coquimbo, UF 150 per year; Puerto Varas, UF 92 thousand per year; and Pucón, UF 44 thousand per year. Once the permits are in operation, this money will be assigned to the respective municipalities.
The SCJ has been given the task of developing the licensing process in the districts of Arica, Iquique, Coquimbo, Viña del Mar, Pucón, Puerto Varas and Natales. With seven new casino licences now up for tender the Chilean gaming market will see its biggest transformation since 2005 the year that the government passed bill Law N°19.995, which allowed for the construction of 18 casinos.
