The recent suspension of Colombia by the Egmont Group, an international network of Financial Intelligence Units (FIU), has triggered a series of significant consequences for the country, mainly in the fight against money laundering, terrorist financing and other financial crimes.

This decision was motivated by the unauthorized disclosure of classified information by President Gustavo Petro, which revealed details about the alleged purchase of the Pegasus software, information that was supposed to remain confidential and only be shared with the Attorney General's Office. The Egmont Group suspended Colombia due to the leak of sensitive data provided by one of its members, the Israel Financial Intelligence Unit (IMPA), related to the alleged purchase of the Pegasus software.

According to the group's rules, this information was not supposed to be disclosed publicly, however, President Petro revealed these details during a presidential address at the beginning of the month.

The suspension means that Colombia no longer has access to Egmont Secure Web (ESW), the secure platform used by the group's 177 members to exchange critical information on financial crimes, money laundering and terrorist financing; no country voted in favor of Colombia in the decision.

This affects a years-long policy in which the UIAF had been strengthened to achieve international cooperation and a good reputation image of the country before global agencies, to ensure joint operations.

The other financial intelligence units that are members of the group could be reluctant to share information with Colombia, fearing that the confidentiality of their data is not guaranteed, which in turn could further weaken cooperation in the fight against financial crimes.

I wonder if the President's luminary is aware of the damage he is doing to the country or better yet if it is premeditated on the eve of a new electoral campaign; I wonder if we as compliance officers are going to be obliged to continue reporting, and in general all officers, I wonder if we are walking one forward and two backwards in our gambling industry, when we have contributed so much.

Local casinos are mimicking the classic Las Vegas playbook and building glittery kid-friendly attractions, the idea: If the whole family is having fun, Mom and Dad will spend more time and money at the casino.

Regional and tribal casinos are investing hundreds of millions of dollars to develop kid-friendly attractions like water parks, large gaming floors and go-kart tracks in response to an increasingly competitive landscape. The stakes are high. Commercial gambling revenue continues to rise in most states where it's legal.

But the growth of sports betting and online gambling far outpaces that of brick-and-mortar casinos, according to data from the American Gaming Association. Meanwhile, new casinos are popping up across the country.

Guyot projects it will draw about a million additional guests to the resort annually. He expects the water park to be especially popular during the frigid New England winters.

Noujaim and his wife may escape for a while to the adult sections of both resorts here and there, leaving grandparents and their older children to supervise the younger ones. But ultimately, the focus is on family time. In addition to attracting out-of-town visitors, these offerings appeal to local residents. Building an entertainment complex or water park is expensive. And parents may just want a place to leave the kids.

Mike Theisen, director of marketing for Kids Quest, attributes the growing demand for child care services at casinos to younger parents who don't want to leave their children at home, "forcing the casino industry to adapt," he says. His company offers supervised play areas for children, along with game rooms for older children, inside casinos. There are now more than a dozen of these kid-friendly facilities across the country, with a new one set to open at the Black Oak Casino Resort in Tuolumne, California, this fall.

Larry Sieg, CEO and president of Visit Atlantic City, says travelers there increasingly view gambling as a mere convenience rather than the primary reason to visit. “There’s gambling all over the country. You must have other things for people to do.” For many years, Las Vegas sought to reinvent itself as a family-friendly destination with amusement park-style attractions and more wholesome shows. Today, Sin City’s marketing has refocused on attracting the adult audience,

Gambling remains by far the biggest revenue driver for casinos across the country.

The new generation of family attractions may work to attract more visitors, but those visitors may not gamble as much. The extra features could end up hurting the bottom line. Plus, those looking to gamble are more likely to go to the facility closest to where they live, experts say, even if it doesn't come with as many amenities.

Not too many years ago, sports betting began to move away from the traditional retail environment and into the personal digital space, and the pace of change accelerated rapidly.

First it was mobile sports betting through dedicated apps, then fantasy sports and eSports betting, and more recently, cryptocurrency betting.New ideas and new companies keep popping up, and it's getting harder and harder to foresee what might be next.

One fairly recent arrival that is gaining traction is the fan token, a product that should be of great interest to the sports betting industry. Supporter/fan/fan tokens offer fans digital engagement with their favorite sports teams via the blockchain.

The sales pitch is that token holders benefit from a closer association with the team in question, and also receive a range of benefits and rewards. Tokens are, in effect, another form of cryptocurrency, as they can be traded, as their value can fluctuate. The value provided is not financial and never will be. The value has to do with the experience and the connection made between the fan and the club.

In fact, I was thinking of ideas to monetize non-playing fans of your poker league teams.

Some of the modalities allow fans to have access to a mobile app, where they can vote on minor decisions, such as the name of a training facility or playlists for in-stadium entertainment.

This concept might be easy to dismiss as a far-fetched dream. From the point of view of the teams themselves, the incentive is economic, "Of course this is driven by money, sports teams need to pay players. Players are getting more and more expensive, so more and more revenue is needed. We are a new source of revenue." argued Dreyfus, CEO of Partners, a company dedicated to tokenizing fans.

Only a fraction of the fans watch the teams play live. Partner teams benefit from a revenue share when tokens/tokens are first sold or subsequently exchanged and, with the volume of fans out there, this could become a huge source of revenue. Premier League soccer clubs, for example, have tens of millions of fans worldwide and yet only a small proportion of them will ever see their team play live.

On the face of it, fan tokens are an opportunity for these millions of supporters to not only feel engaged with the team, but also to participate in real activities.

Just as we've seen the once "new kids on the block" DraftKings and FanDuel smartly partner and evolve into sports betting giants, we should keep an eye on fan tokens, and see where their roadmap takes us.

Brazil and Latin America are on the minds of most online gaming industry executives right now, and rightly so. Operators, suppliers and consultants have been busy working on deals and helping shape regulations in the continent's biggest markets for many years. As Brazil prepares for regulated online sports betting and casinos, many of those long-term projects are now coming to fruition.

The region is, and has been, growing for some time, and while Brazil is the largest and most significant market, countries such as Peru and Chile are active and new deals are also being closed in important jurisdictions such as Mexico and Colombia.

However, for all the talk of promise and growth, it is also important to remember that all markets in the region, especially Brazil as the largest of them, have been active for many years and have several major operators who dominate market share and hope to maintain that share once regulation comes into effect. Furthermore, unregulated operators will not stop operating and concentrating on the market once regulation is introduced.

Therefore, just like the regulated markets in Europe, competition will come from all directions. Success factors. This means that factors such as brand recognition, reputation, reliability and word of mouth will play a key role in influencing where players decide to open accounts.

This will be even more pertinent in the early days of regulation, when the topic will receive a lot of media attention. It will be covered extensively on mainstream television channels, while newspapers and mass market consumers talk about sports betting and exchange tips and anecdotes about odds and betting. Reputation and recommendations are the factors that most influence users when choosing an online bookmaker, while faster payouts (unsurprisingly) top the list of improvements punters would like to see from operators.

Clear focus. When it comes to companies supplying the industry, most openly state that Latin America, and Brazil in particular, are important focus areas for them. Giant neighbours. For US operators, the fact that the US market has become an effective duopoly and the top four betting brands control around 85% of the market means that looking south for new markets to develop is an obvious step. In markets outside of Latin America, “many sports bettors are motivated to bet because they want to make money or bet on the teams they support.”

In the US, the strong heritage of fantasy sports means there is a greater interest in individual athletes, and this has created significant interest in player-focused prop bets and matched bets. This history has allowed sports betting to quickly take root in the broader US fan experience and has “given rise to the concept of the recreational bettor who wagers in-game to truly enhance their personal enjoyment.” As Brazil’s sports betting market continues to evolve with regulation, “we will see behavioural trends emerge among sports bettors in the region” and, with expansion slowing in the US, “operators are putting more emphasis on product improvements as well as improving the user experience to generate more revenue from existing customers.”

These personalisation and gamification features will play a key role in Brazil, “already occurring for some time” across the board. “Gaining user data to offer highly targeted bets to players based on their history and clientele levels allows operators to maximise lifetime values, segment the player base and implement robust personalisation features.” As operators, suppliers and affiliates continue to jostle for position in Brazil and other Latin American countries, competition levels will be intense.

But amid all the sound and fury of a Brazilian market that is forecast to generate revenues of $9.7 billion by 2028, the key will be attention to detail and the provision of deep and broad offerings to attract and retain players.

The resolution that was published regarding land use, made us run bases since its publication in October of last year and we still can't catch up, we continue to process before curatorships, mayors and they don't resolve it; I did say that they are going to ask us for money, and it is happening to me personally with 2 requests in Cundinamarca.

Speaking with operators from other cities we agree with the same concern: The prosecutor's office and Coljuegos. Recently Coljuegos published the transfer of more than 160 processes to the accusing entity and names as usual the games located and the illegal operation, and I don't have any good thoughts about it because we, the located ones, only appear in the news of the entity to give credit to some illegal operation, confiscation or similar; not being the case of baloto, chance, sports that always contribute and contribute, according to Coljuegos President.

Returning to my concern, it bothers me that with Coljuegos' desire to take center stage against those located, they are carrying out a witch hunt, accusing them of anything and there they can defend themselves.

Let us remember that some of the land uses that we contributed a little over 8 years ago, could not be valid because either the POT changed and if there is something that has characterized the current administration it is the blinded hatred against us and the easiest thing is to accuse us of being false for not respecting acquired rights or simply with the excuse of not having enough personnel to process it.

I hope time does not prove me right, this is one of those bets that I want to lose.