CONAJZAR, the Paraguay Gaming Board, is battling illegal gambling halls as well as match fixing in sports. CONAJZAR President Javier Balbuena said, “We close the halls but the next day they open somewhere else. Our physical capacity does not allow us to cover every place in the country. We have closed more than 20 illegal gaming rooms, and it is a titanic struggle.”
Balbuena also noted match fixing is a growing problem in sports in the nation. He mentioned the alleged match-fixing case involving Tobias Vargas, the goalkeeper from Sportivo Luqueño, who is said to have bet his entire salary against his own team in a match with Cerro Porteño. Club President Walter Gustavo Benítez said after the match that Vargas supposedly won nearly $9,000 after his team lost 3-2.
Balbuena said, “There are players who earn a low salary and with a bet they could triple what they earn in a month.” However, he did say that there were still doubts over the Tobias Vargas case.
Still, Balbuena stated match fixing exists and sports betting in Latin America is not effectively regulated. He said several meetings have been held with the Paraguayan Football Association in an attempt to regulate the industry more closely and prevent match fixing. Such activities have been ongoing since February 2016, when Balbuena announced CONAJZAR would step up efforts to lobby for a bill that would make the agency an autonomous body with its own legal status and budget apart from the Ministry of Finance. Balbuena added the board is chronically understaffed with just 15 employees, and its budget is inadequate for supervising the nation’s gaming industry.
