Uruguay’s daily newspaper El Pais reported that Uruguayans spent a total UYU23.2 billion ($805.5 million) on all forms of gambling last year, or about 1.3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.
All games, except instant Quiniela had a small increase in sales according to Director of Lotteries and Quinielas Luis Gama.
The country’s 30 land-based gaming halls generated combined revenue of UYU6.5 billion, a year-on-year gain of 5.2 percent. Horserace betting brought revenue of UYU238 million to the Hípica Rioplatense monopoly.
The DNLQ’s sports and lottery products brought in UYU13 billion, up 6.3 percent year-on-year, with Supermatch reporting the largest growth of all DNLQ products with sales of UYU1.7 billion.
“The increase is reasonable,” said Gama, “a long time ago we decided not to increase the gaming offer and to concentrate on the ones we are already running, because we are left with the most traditional games and the ones that people are most interested in.”
Gama also said he believed the country’s state intention to begin blocking unlicensed offshore online gambling sites led many players to switch to the lottery’s Supermatch.
Meanwhile, the country is reportedly poised to actually begin blocking unlicensed offshore sites under legislation passed in the fall.
Gama told El Pais that his office had identified a number of offending domains, which would be subject to blocking. He named UK online betting giant Bet365 and GVC Holdings’ Bwin brand as among the most popular international sites with Uruguayan punters.
The DNLQ has teamed with telecom authority Unidad Reguladora de Servicios de Comunicaciones and local internet service providers, but also with the Banco Central del Uruguay and credit card companies to block the play by Uruguayan gamblers on the sites.
