Colombian gaming regulator Coljuegos has announced it will create an “elite body” to combat illegal gaming operations, which it says robs the legal market of about US$250 million per year, or about 40 percent of total revenues.
The head of the agency, Juan B. Perez Hidalgo, blames organized crime for illegal gambling. “Here there are criminal gangs that are being investigated. In fact the Prosecutor’s Office is taking the job of pursuing the illegality of gambling very seriously. There are criminal structures that are stealing from the health of Colombians. The gaming sector has been professionalized and formalized to continue to combat money laundering and illegality,” he said.
A number of measures will be taken, according to Hidalgo. “In order to end this phenomenon, the government is looking to form an elite body, which will be responsible for strengthening operations against illegal gambling and surveillance and control on this front will be intensified. We hope that this elite body will start working in about two months, currently what we are doing is working jointly with the governors, mayors and the unions of the sector to combat the illegal games of luck and chance,” he said.
Hidalgo made the statements during the LAFT America Conference (Annual Congress against Money Laundering) held in Bogota last month. The conference, which is organized by the Colombian Association of Gaming Operators (Asojuegos) is aimed at strengthening anti-money laundering measures in the sector.
In February Coljuegos reported record revenues from gaming in 2018, up 9.8 percent from 2017 to US$184.5 million. Increasing revenue was derived mostly from casinos and bingo halls which made up 60.2 percent of the total.
Increased revenues for the state were attributed to the clampdown on illegal gambling. In 2018, the Coljuegos board seized 2,813 illegal slot machines as well as a large haul of other illegal gambling equipment. It also blocked, with the help of other government bodies, as many as 2,616 unauthorized online betting sites and signed a number of pacts with regional governments in order to clampdown further and coordinate efforts on a national level.
