The Superintendency of Gambling Casinos reported that at the hearing for the presentation of technical and economic offers, held within the framework of the process of granting operating permits for casinos that began in July 2020, a total of eleven projects were presented.
As anticipated, there were no new entrants. Both Dreams (Temuco and Valdivia) and Enjoy (Antofagasta and Los Angeles) chose only to keep the places they already had. Meanwhile, Marina (Calama and Osorno) opted to add Talca and Copiapó.
“As on so many other occasions, we have participated in a nationwide casino auction. We have competed to defend our licenses in Antofagasta and opt for the one in Los Angeles. With reasonable economic offers, they will mean a substantial improvement to the value proposition that we offer to our clients in both communes. We compete in a scenario of uncertainty, both in the country and in the casino industry itself, in which some places are even suspended from the bidding, by virtue of court decisions. It is evident that this context is the one that explains -to some extent- the little interest of new players to enter this market, which reaffirms that it was not the best time to carry out this process,” commented Eduardo Sboccia, Manager of Corporate Affairs at Enjoy.
Last Friday (15), the 22nd Civil Court of Santiago ordered the suspension of the process where the Monticello casino operates in San Francisco de Mostazal. This is in addition to the fact that on October 6, the 25th Civil Court of Santiago suspended the auction corresponding to Talcahuano, then the same court suspended the Punta Arenas process.
After the ruling related to the Talcahuano process, the casino operators asked the authority to suspend the entire process, which was not accepted. The country’s Casinos Association warned that "if the bidding process is not stopped, it could happen that the courts rule in favor of our position when the Superintendency has already wrongly awarded the licenses according to a law that does not correspond."
Through a statement, the SCJ said that “as soon as it was notified of said resolutions, the Superintendency presented the respective judicial resources requesting to leave them without effect, which to date are pending a decision, without prejudice to which the SCJ will abide by what the court finally decides.”
It should be noted that there are 12 places up for tender. Of them, four are from Dreams (Monticello, Temuco, Valdivia and Punta Arenas), three from Marina (Talcahuano, Osorno and Calama), two from Enjoy (Antofagasta and Los Angeles), as well as Antay Casino & Hotel de Copiapó, from Luckia (Spain), the Casino de Colchagua, from the Cardoen group, and the Gran Casino de Talca, from the Peruvian firm Corporación Meier. Currently there are three places suspended by the courts.
Source: GMB / La Tercera (Chile)
