LATIN AMERICA Puerto Rico
Illegal slots present in shops, bars, bakeries and other
locations have in the past proliferated widely and have been a long standing issue. Puerto Rico saw the closure of a
number of casinos as illegal gaming continued to spread throughout the island with lawmakers and industry professional calling for urgent action on the issue.
per cent increase from the previous year. By November 2024, job creation in the leisure and hospitality sector added a record 101,700 jobs. Cruise arrivals saw the biggest increase – 1.4 million passengers visited San Juan Cruise Port in 2024 – 10% more than 2023. Te “Visitor Profile for Fiscal Year 2023-2024,” released by
the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics and the Puerto Rico Tourism Company, stated that 93 per cent of visitors came from the U.S., with 63 per cent being Puerto Ricans living abroad. At the same time there have been a number of recent high-
profile project announcements. Tese include the Mandarin Oriental which is opening its first property in the western municipality of Cabo Rojo as part of the $2bn Esencia resort development. Four Seasons will replace the St. Regis Bahia Beach Resort in Río Grande, while Hilton Hotels has multiple projects underway.
THE BATTLE AGAINST THE ILLEGAL SLOT MARKET Illegal slots present in shops, bars, bakeries and other locations have in the past proliferated widely and have been a long standing issue. Puerto Rico saw the closure of a number of casinos as illegal gaming continued to spread throughout the island with lawmakers and industry professional calling for urgent action on the issue. Te decline in the casino industry was blamed squarely on
the growth of illegal gaming, which had a devastating effect on an industry - a vital source of funding for both the Ministry of Tourism and the biggest State University on the island. According to data released by the Puerto Rican Hotel and Tourism Association illegal slot machines vastly outnumbered
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legal slot machines, as there were only about 7,000 licensed slot machines located in casinos and hotels compared to the 25,000 that operated without a license in 2014. Lawmakers were undecided as to how to tackle the issue
with some calling for an outright ban while a number of senators proposed granting licences to slot parlours in order to raise tax income. In July 2014 the government passed Law No. 77 which gave the regulatory body the Puerto Rico Tourism Company (PRTC) the authority to monitor and supervise the operation of illegal gaming machines and imposed much stiffer penalties on those found to operating outside of the law. Faced with the new rules slot parlour and machine owners
appealed to the courts, but in 2016 the courts ruled that the PRTC was acting legally and declared that slot machines outside of casinos were indeed illegal. Despite this the situation remained pretty much unchanged
for years. By 2018 despite a crackdown and raids there were still around 25,000 illegal slots on the island according to some estimates. In addition casinos continued to close.
NEW RULES Te year 2018 was decisive in terms of regulation. In December the government passed Act 257-2018. Te new rules on slot machines were part of a much wider draft of new tax measures designed to provide nearly US$2bn in tax relief over the next five years. According to the bill the limit of gambling devices authorised
in Puerto Rico may reach up to a maximum of 25,000 devices during the first two years after the effective date of the Act. At the end of the first two years, 10,000 additional devices may be
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