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Argentina: ‘Casino King’ under pressure, selling off gambling assets

By  |  June 14, 2016

Cristobal López, known as Argentina’s ‘Gambling Tsar’, has been revealed to be transferring ownership of his stocks in various casino, bingo and slot-machine businesses to his long-time business associate Ricardo Benedicto. The businessman, who saw a meteoric rise during the Kirchner years, has now been targeted by Argentina’s National Lottery and fiscal prosecutors over an alleged $8 billion peso ($580 million US) tax fraud which benefited his companies.

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    López will transfer over 30% of his ownership in Inverclub, the company that controls his gambling business through the Casino Club managing brand, which operates 27 casinos around the country, as well as shares in Argentina’s largest gambling venues which include the Buenos Aires racetrack and the country’s largest casino, in Buenos Aires.

    López has presented these plans to the country’s newly-resurrected National Commission for the Defense of Competition (CNDC). The case could yet have an international dimension, as Inverclub currently owns 37.5% of Florida’s casinos, while the company also owns over half of the bingo and gambling halls in the city of Rosario.

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