LATINO AMERICA PART TWO I


By Ricki Chavez Munoz


n 2010, all 15 casinos in Chile grossed US$317.34 million, an increase of 44.3% on 2009 gross revenue at US$219.81. It is important to state that between March and June, 8 casinos, including leading Monticello casino, closed after the February 27 earthquake in south Chile. However, not everything smells of roses in Chile, where a lack of legislation provisions for the operation of slots machines as a whole has small parlours in the country operating in excess of 100.000 skill-termed gaming devices in so called ‘clown casinos’.


MEXICO


Without doubt the largest, fastest, and most irregular market, where a 1947 Federal lotteries and betting legislation received a set of regulations in 2004 that empowered the Secretaria de Gobernacion – SEGOB - (State Office) to grant permits to operate gaming halls to a select group of businesses in the country.


With the leading gaming companies such as Caliente and Corporacion Interamericana de Entretenimiento (CIE) at the forefront of the industry, and both Spanish giants: Codere and Cirsa leading the pack, Televisa, the transnational, also got into the act with its Play City ‘casino’ brand, set exclusively after getting its Segob permits. However, as you cannot keep a good Mexican businessman down, many such sharp operators have managed to open casinos with third


party, hired, contracted or plainly false permits, and invested millions of pesos building their own bit of Las Vegas in Mariachi land.


However, as markets go, Mexico has its very own idiosyncrasy, where operators make very good use of the ‘maquineros’, who are non-other than slots machine suppliers, whether manufacturers, distributers or agents, providing equipment on participation rates that nets them as low as 18% depending on the quality and cost of the gaming devices. Basically, Mexico is an operator’s market, where real machine sales are not very encouraging, but where there is great potential for business, and any ventures into the gaming industry in this country should be with expert market and gaming professional guidance.


OTHER MARKETS


As some countries like the Dominican Republic exercise new tax and regulations reforms, others like Panama and Uruguay continue an upwards property development trend, either as a free market or mixed economy respectively. One thing is for certain, though, as the years move on Latin American countries carry on improving gaming regulation in their


jurisdictions where compliance more than matches that in first world economies.


For additional information on Latin American gaming read Casino International Americano or contact Ricki Chavez-Munoz at greatavickery@yahoo.co.uk


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