Since three weeks ago there was a meeting between the Southern Hotel, Tourism, Restoration and Similar Industry Workers Union and the Chief of Staff of the Secretary of State for Tourism, Nuno Fazenda, the Portuguese bingo halls still don´t have a clear idea how to solve the hard situation where the business are.
“80 employees in Lisbon, in Belenenses, who receive salaries in cash because the concessionaire in question does not have a bank account”
Bingo halls lost relevance in the Portuguese routine throughout this century: there were 30 game rooms in 2002, now there are six. Due to the pandemic, various legal and administrative measures have closed bingo halls or limited their operation. And, in this sequence, the merchants have “suffocated” financially and are unable to deliver what they were supposed to do.
In that meeting -which mention at the beginning of this note- several points were denounced: the bingos owe more than €4million to the State in taxes; and there would be irregularities in the operation of the gambling halls: workers with contracts suspended for more than a year, concession halls yet to open.
