Operator News
Colombia – Colombia’s gaming sector enjoys its best ever year
By Phil - 18 December 2018
Head of the Colombian gaming regulator Coljuegos Juan Pérez Hidalgo has announced that 2018 has been a record year for the industry.
According to Pérez Hidalgo, the industry generated $523,746m up until the end of November, so that by the end of the year the board predicts that the industry will have raised over $550,000m for the financing of the Colombian health service.
The agency highlighted the fact that this collection of revenue for gaming licensing rights saw a growth of nine per cent in the last year and since the creation of Coljuegos in 2012, had recorded an accumulated increase of more than 85 per cent, as in 2012 the board collected $287,000m.
“Today we can say that after almost seven years of being in operation, the work of each of Coljuegos employees, of all state entities that support and accompany the entity and also the development of an industry that contributes to the payment of taxes, the industry should be classified as a sector of the national economy. An industry that contributed 1.5tn pesos to the State’s finances in 2017, between exploitation rights and Value Added Tax (VAT),” Mr. Pérez said.
According to the official, one of the reasons behind increased revenue for the state was the clampdown on illegal gambling. This year the board has seized 2,813 illegal slot machines as well as a large haul of other illegal gambling equipment. It has also blocked, with the help of other government bodies, as many as 2,616 unauthorised online betting sites and now signed 16 pacts with regional governments in order to clampdown further and coordinate efforts on a national level.
Earlier this month Coljuegos also announced that after 17 months since the entrance of the first online gaming operator, online gambling has raised more than $33bn in the payment of licensing rights, more than 1.6 million players have registered to play and operators have awarded more than $1.3bn in prizes.
“We must also highlight the development that the industry has generated in business terms and on the local economy. Currently there are more than 2,400 physical points of sale, covering 32 departments and in more than 380 municipalities, 30 percent of the points of sale of online games in the country are concentrated in Bogotá, Medellín and Bucaramanga,” Pérez Hidalgo said.
The board also began its first slot machine count in February, and found 84,241 slot machines in 2,709 establishments located in 384 municipalities nationwide.
As of October 2018, land based gambling (bingo, slot parlours, casinos, sports betting) raised in licensing rights, $ $286,512m, making up 63.6 per cent of the total. Lottery game Baloto-Revancha accounted for $65,115m (14.4 per cent) Superastro, $ 65,034m (14.4 per cent) while promotional games paid $ 5,272m.
