After a 12-year moratorium, casinos may now legally operate in Venezuela. The first license was granted in November to the Hotel Humboldt in Caracas.
The casino is now operating with about 70 employees in what gaming industry veteran Soraya Roye calls “a positive initiative to activate the economy and promote legal gambling in the country.” Roye is the director of Winners 2015 CA, a company that installs and operates gaming venues in Panama, Mexico, Costa Rica and now Venezuela.
She called the opportunity “very positive, although the majority of Venezuelan ‘ex-casinos’ have abandoned the activity, closed their doors and some have left the country, which means that experienced entrepreneurs have been reduced.
“In terms of investors, new ones have arrived who are strongly evaluating the possibility of being part of a national opening and investing in the country and making the sector grow.”
She pointed out that foreign investment is guaranteed by licenses under the National Commission on Casinos. However, she told Games Magazine Brasil, “we continue to trust the country and bet on an organized opening where we all have the opportunity to participate, compete and avoid monopoly. … I would like to highlight President Nicolás Maduro’s vision of supporting tourism and delivering the first license, which was a transcendental and historic decision.”
