Colombia: Fecoljuegos sends an alert message to the regulator

Members of the Board of Directors and affiliates to Fecoljuegos, localized gaming, online gaming and providers of the industry assisted to the gathering that is held every year to know about the actions of the Federation and work plan for 2019.

At the 18th Assembly, President Evert Montero Cárdenas surprised everyone with a speech of alert and worry about localized gaming operation in Colombia. He assured that the regulator has a very important challenge in order to boost the operation and make it grow according to the income instead of a tax rise, because nowadays, efforts are concentrated in keeping the income and not to generate more revenue.

 “It is necessary to dynamize the localized games sector, which represents the 63% of the contribution to Colombians health, to open competence spaces which enable to offer mechanisms to increase sales, to generate more utilities for both the State and the businessmen. If an operator is successful, there will be more employment, investment and expansion opportunities to benefit the economy of the country,” the director explained.

According to the entity, the 70% of gaming elements pay a fixed rate, which means that the machines are not generating even the minimum rent expected by the State, equivalent to 12%, with a cost-effectiveness lower than the minimum or nule.

Montero Cárdenas affirmed that this situation is due to the “incapacity of the State to generate conditions of competitiveness and legality in business, and to the creation of a collection policy and non-commercial, which leads to a stagnation of the activity and affect the legal and financial sustainability of the industry in the long term.”

With regard to online gaming, the President pointed that the Federation insists on boosting the need to expand the gaming offer to include more options inside the catalog allowed, however, he said that, in order to make progress in the online regulation, it is required that the Board of Directors of the entity has more dynamism.

On the invitation made to Coljuegos President, Juan B. Pérez Hidalgo, it was demanded that competitiveness conditions have to be created via concrete and precise actions.