LATINO AMERICA pt1 L
by Ricardo Chavez-Munoz
ast year’s opening report had Miami as the new developing area in the region. We mention Miami, because as the unofficial capital of Latin America, developments there, or in any industry, impact on the region as a whole.
With the signing of the Florida compact with the Seminole Tribe, last June, enabling
Class III and table games operation for the Hard Rock casinos in three Seminole properties, legislators made allowances for similar slots, plus poker games, to be available to a number of sports and race tracks venues, including the Hialeah Park Racetrack in the heart of Miami, which has now reopened as the racino and entertainment destination closest to the Bahamas. Needless to say, this has seen the end of the cruise gaming business in the state.
CARIBBEAN With the development of Florida gaming, across the straits in The Bahamas, Prime
Minister Hubert Ingraham has said that gambling for local Bahamians is definitely on the cards, since the laws against it cannot be enforced. Late in June, Tourism Minister Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace informed that the committee for Gaming Reform, appointed last year to examine the country's gaming laws, had made "great headway" in exploring the best possible approach for the development and expansion of the local gaming industry, and suitably, Kerzner International followed this by planning investment to the tune of US $100 million to upgrade the country’s destination flagship Atlantis, in Nassau. For years now, the Bahamas Gaming Reform, headed by Sidney Strachan, has been
arguing that Bahamians should be afforded the same rights to participate in the gaming industry in Caribbean countries, which allows only foreigner gambling in casinos. This group estimates that a national gaming network would gross gaming revenue at US $60- 100 million annually, create more than a 1,000 jobs for Bahamians and bolster the government's treasury by more than US $30 million a year.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Further down the tropical enchanted islands, there were rumblings of banning slot machine gambling in small high street outlets, coffee shops, sports betting shops, bars,
restaurants, billiard halls, and the like, as a bill was introduced in the Dominican Republic Congress to prohibit slot machines outside casinos, leaving all those establishments presently operating gaming machines, facing the prospect of losing their profits from gambling, and outright penury. With major resorts investment in the country expanding its tourism industry with the opening of two new casino resorts, and three in the offing, as the country's economy steams ahead growing around 10% a year, Dominican Republic has become a popular place for investment by overseas gaming operators, who have put pressure on the government to do away with the 2006 amendments to the Casino Law. Under new reforms, the bill introduced via the Senate, would amend the law regulating slot machine operations outside casinos and give powers to the Casino Commission, part of the Finance Ministry, to remove all gaming machines from properties other than casinos, along similar lines to Panama’s gaming laws.
PUERTO RICO In the first week of June, Congressman Angel Rodriguez proposed a 90-day amnesty for
operators of illegal slot machines in Puerto Rico, while the Senate was debating a project to eliminate all gaming machines outside the country’s hotel casinos. Rodriguez’s point was that the island government should seek “to gain more tax revenue by legalizing an industry that already exists.” The initiative to ban all gaming machines outside the casinos or the hippodrome is
backed by the current administration in response to a bill presented by the Opposition to establish a video lottery system, which essentially would regulate the machines that now operate illegally in cafes, restaurants and bars. Only 5-star hotels are licensed to operate casinos in Puerto Rico. The video lottery system was estimated to bring in some US $220 million needed to balance the next budget. Off hotel slots operators have established a united front to battle against the slot machine ban, which would affect hundreds of businesses. The ban, however, must have the backing of the Lower House of Puerto Rico in order to be considered in Parliament. An estimated 33,500 to 47,500 machines outside casino hotels operate at present in Puerto Rico, although some counts put the figure at over 100,000.
by Ricardo Chavez Munoz
Read his monthly column in Casino International or check out
www.casinocompendium.com for up-to-date news on Latino America
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