Chile: New gambling licenses to shake up competition

Chile’s casinos in Arica, Iquique, Coquimbo, Vi˜ã del Mar, Pucon, Puerto Varas and Puerto Natales will, starting in 2018, begin to be audited by the country’s Gambling Casino Superintendence (SCJ). The intervening years will be used to carry out a new public contest process for the management of these seven locations, which have been held by the same operators for several years, benefitting from municipal contracts.

The new contests will consider an economic element, with each candidate offering the municipality a share of profits earned through the operation of the casinos. Candidates who make the largest offer to the municipality -while scoring at least a 60% in their technical evaluation – will be granted the contract.

Latin Gaming Group, current operators of the Arica Casino, have spoken against the changes, calling the new system “riskier” than the previous one. “It’s a greater risk for the country, because having successfully contested 18 licenses under a scheme that worked perfectly, they have now decided to change the formula and apply new, different and much more expensive rules”, the company said.

Source: Diario del Juego

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