Interactive
Colombia – Over 1.9m online players have registered in Colombia
By Phil - 21 February 2019
Colombian gaming regulator Coljuegos has reported a record collection of revenue from online gaming licensing and exploitation rights during 2018. Operator rights for online gambling reached over $37bn (US $ 11,880,355), with more than 1.9m players enrolled on the 16 authorised online sites as reported by the president of the organisation Juan B. Pérez Hidalgo.
“In July 2017 Coljuegos began the collecting exploitation rights of online gaming. From that month to December, when six operators entered the market, an income of $5,362,160,039 was generated, which meant an average monthly entry of $893,693,340. In 2018 when 10 more sites entered the market, the collection in the year stood at $37,912,328,863, generating an average monthly input of $3,159,360,739,” he said.
Hidalgo also highlighted the growing acceptance and interest of Colombian players in gambling as a form of entertainment, and pointed out the high rate of return to players which for 2018 stood at 89 per cent. In addition sports betting was also on the rise he said.
“The pages authorised to allow bets on real sports events reached a total of 1,926,493 registered accounts, having achieved an average number of monthly registrations of 816,601 users since the authorisation of these games. The highest growth in registrations of new accounts from one month to the next came in June 2018, reaching for that month 1,155,780 and a growth in 258,381 registrations (May to June 2018), when the World Cup in Russia was held, ” he said.
Hidalgo said that increased revenues were also down to the fact that Coljuegos and business leaders in the sector were working closely together and that the government had cracked down on illegal online gambling and blocked as many as 2,624 websites which were operating illegally.
Earlier this month Coljuegos reported a record collection of revenue from gaming licensing and exploitation rights during 2018. Operator rights for gambling reached $574bn (US $ 184,499,343m), 9.8 per cent more than in 2017, as reported by Hidalgo. Increasing revenue was derived mostly from casinos and bingo halls which made up $345bn, equivalent to 60.2 per cent of the total.
