The gambling industry has been fundamental in the efforts that are made to close social gaps in Colombia, but also to push the socioeconomic development of Country. That is why the president of Coljuegos, Juan B. Pérez Hidalgo (pictured), has shared how the government is working on that front, what perspectives and challenges the sector has and how much progress has been made in combating illegality, his biggest headache.
How has the sector contributed to closing social gaps?
Juan B. Pérez: “It has been an instruction of President Duque to work on three axes: Legality, Entrepreneurship and Equity. All of the above with the purpose of closing social gaps and that is why from Coljuegos we have been able to contribute to that goal in these first months of Government.
Regarding legality, within the framework of the strategy "The one that makes it pay", with the National Police the following results have been achieved: Since August, 77 control actions have been carried out (one action per day), removing 1,095 elements of gambling that operated illegally. Likewise, 1,446 pages of online betting were blocked without authorization, this represents 56% of the work carried out during the year, with the support of Ministry of Tech and the Cybernetic Center of the National Police.
In terms of entrepreneurship, with the strategy "Simple State, Agile Colombia", Coljuegos has been advancing actions to be more efficient with its clients: the average time of authorization of games located in the last 3 months has been 11 working days, improving the average of 15 days of the previous months of the year. In the same way, in August, the processing of promotional games was simplified through the operator's portal, reducing transaction costs for operators.”
In terms of equity, what has been done?
JBP: “It must be remembered that the resources raised by the Monopoly of Gambling will finance the health of the Colombians: the Superastro (local lotto game) recorded in September the highest level of sales in its history ($ 35,835 million COP), on average 18 million tickets and, in that same sense, the gambling games operated by Internet from August to October have collected $ 11,787 million COP, 71% of the collected in the previous 7 months of the year. In the accumulated, this game has raised $ 28,380 million COP, have registered 1.5 million players and sales for $ 1.2 billion COP.
Keep in mind that $ 147,041 million COP have been collected for Exploitation Rights from August to October. October being the highest collection month of the year with $ 51,780 million COP. We hope to close this year with a collection of operating rights of $ 570,941 million COP.
Last but not least, remember that during the government of President Duque we estimate to grow 50% in exploitation rights, reaching $ 800,000 COP of annual collection, for an accumulated of $ 3.0 billion COP in the 4 years.
Colombia has become a benchmark in the gambling industry with enormous opportunities for foreign investors. Within the framework of the strategy "The one who does it, pays it", with the National Police, more than 77 control actions have been carried out.”
How much money has been collected after the regularization of online gambling?
JBP: “We must emphasize that this type of online gambling already exceeded sales by $ 1.5 billion COP ($ 1.505.852.262.807 - June 2017 to October 2018), which has allowed to have exceeded the $ 33 billion COP collected for the payment of exploitation rights. Resources that are transferred to the health of the country and with which the service could be subsidized to more than 41,000 vulnerable Colombians.
Coljuegos expects this collection to continue increasing due to the exploitation rights of online games. Well, the growth of resources raised by this type of gambling allows us to investigate better results for the country's finances. In the second half of 2017, when six operators entered the market, an income of $ 5,362,160,039 COP was generated, which meant an average monthly entry of $ 893,693,340 COP. In 2018, when they have entered 10 more pages, the collection in the year was $ 28,380,442,516 COP, generating an average monthly collection of $ 2,838,044,252 COP.
But we are aware that this positive behavior will only be achieved by the operators, who contribute to the development of these games. Also, with the efforts we made to combat illegality. We have already blocked, along with the Tech Ministry and the Cybernetic Center of the National Police, 1,805 websites that offered illegal gambling, and we continue to coordinate efforts with all State instruments to attack those who do not contribute to the health of Colombians. It is not fair that those who pay taxes have unequal competition.”
Is Colombia an attractive country for foreign companies that want to invest in this sector?
JBP: “Of course, our country has become a benchmark in the gambling industry with enormous opportunities for foreign investors. To believe in Colombia is to opt for a country with legal stability, with a strong regulator, a portfolio of diversified gambling types, a very important market potential, a sector that is being transformed digitally and an expense per consumer that continues to grow. The figures, not to go so far, show that at an international level our industry has been positioning itself.”
Will they take initiatives to the Congress of the Republic to grow the sector of gambling?
JBP: We have made our contribution to the construction of the National Development Plan (PND due to its Spanish meaning) because we believe that this is a sector that should continue to move towards modernization and greater competitiveness. For now, we must wait for the last document of the plan to turn out before giving rise to speculation about it. However, I can tell you that we have done a constructive exercise of listening to the businessmen so that they could transmit their proposals to us collectively with a view to promoting the development of this industry. Of course, we analyze technically the viability of the same and after an exhaustive study we transmit all this information to the team that builds the PND.
There have been operations throughout the country that have ended with the confiscation of elements of illegal gambling and the criminalization of those responsible.
What is being done in this sector to combat illegality?
JBP: “We are leading an unprecedented crusade against illegality, with results, as I said at the beginning of this interview, very positive. We are doing operations throughout the country that have ended in the confiscation of elements of illegal gambling and the criminalization of people who incur these crimes.”
What challenges does the sector face?
JBP: “By 2019 we have identified several challenges on which we are already working tirelessly: financial inclusion because this industry has strong arguments for banks and insurers to open doors, greater formality, professionalization of the sector, digital transformation, competitiveness in tax matters and, of course, we will continue to concentrate on making Coljuegos an efficient entity in terms of procedures.”
What are the growth prospects for 2019?
JBP: “We are working on the identification of goals for 2019 and I do not want to make them official yet, but what I can tell you is that we have drawn up a plan to help this industry to continue to be prosperous and to overcome all the challenges posed by the same modernization or accelerated growth result in the way. We will work tirelessly from the regulator in that task, with the permanent dialogue with the guilds and operators. All this joint work from the National Government will allow us to continue demonstrating that the gambling industry contributes with commitment to the socioeconomic development of Colombia.”
