Last year’s report had Miami as the new developing area in the region. We mention Miami, because as the unofficial capital of Latin America developments there, or in any industry, impact on the region as a whole.

With the signing of the Florida compact with the Seminole Tribe, last June, enabling Class III and table games operation for the Hard Rock casinos in three Seminole properties, State legislators made allowances for similar slots, plus poker games, to be available to a number of sports and race track venues, including the Hialeah Park Racetrack in the heart of Miami, which has now reopened as the racino and entertainment destination closest to the Bahamas. Needless to say, this has seen the end of the cruise gaming business in the state.

THE CARIBBEAN
With the development of Florida gaming, across the straights in The Bahamas, Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham has said that gambling for local Bahamians is definitely on the cards, since the laws against it cannot be enforced.

Late in June, Tourism Minister Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace, informed that the committee for Gaming Reform, appointed last year to examine the country's gaming laws, had made "great headway" in exploring the best possible approach for the development and expansion of the local gaming industry, and suitably, Kerzner International followed this by planning investment to the tune of US$100 million to upgrade the country’s destination flagship Atlantis, in Nassau.

For years now, the Bahamas Gaming Reform group, headed by Sidney Strachan, has been arguing that Bahamians should be afforded the same rights to participate in the gaming industry in Caribbean country, which allows only foreigners gambling in casinos. This group estimates that a national gaming network would gross gaming revenue at US$60-100 million annually, create more than a 1,000 jobs for Bahamians and bolster the government's treasury by more than US$30 million a year.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Further down the tropical enchanted islands, there were rumblings of banning slot machine gambling in small high street outlets, coffee shops, sports betting shops, bars, restaurants, billiard halls, and the like, as a bill was introduced in the Dominican Republic Congress to prohibit slot machines outside casinos, leaving all those establishments presently operating gaming machines facing the prospect of losing their profits from gambling, and outright penury.

With major resort investment in the country expanding its tourism industry with the opening of two new casino resorts, and another three in the offing, the country's economy steams ahead growing around 10% a year. The Dominican Republic has become a popular place for investment by overseas gaming operators, who have put pressure on the government to do away with the 2006 amendments to the Casino Law.

Under new reforms, the bill introduced via the Senate, would amend the law regulating slot machine operations outside casinos and give powers to the Casino Commission, part of the Finance Ministry, to remove all gaming machines from properties other than casinos, along similar lines to Panama’s gaming laws.

PUERTO RICO
In the first week of June, Congressman Angel Rodriguez proposed a 90-day amnesty for operators of illegal slot machines in Puerto Rico, while the Senate was debating a project to eliminate all gaming machines outside the country’s hotel casinos. Rodriguez’s point was that the island government should seek “to gain more tax revenue by legalizing an industry that already exists.”

The initiative to ban all gaming machines outside the casinos or the hippodrome is backed by the current administration in response to a bill presented by the Opposition to establish a video lottery system, which essentially would regulate the machines that now operate illegally in cafes, restaurants and bars. Only 5 star hotels are licensed to operate casinos in Puerto Rico.

The video lottery system was estimated to bring in some US$220 million needed to balance the next budget. Off hotel slots operators have established a united front to battle against the slot machine ban, which would affect hundreds of businesses. The ban, however, must have the backing of the Lower House of Puerto Rico in order to be considered in Parliament. An estimated 33,500 to 47,500 machines outside casino hotels operate at present in Puerto Rico, although some counts put the figure at over 100,000.

PANAMA
As regulated gaming in Panama maintains growth in revenue and investments, Princess Casino International opened another property in the region, in Panama City at the luxurious Sheraton Four Points hotel. The Princess Group owns 30 casinos in 12 different countries, as well as 12 hotels. The Group planned the official inauguration party of its latest casino to coincide with the final day of the SAGSE Gaming Panama 2010 show in June, and according to Sudi Ozkan, President of Princess Group, other properties in the region will follow up this latest venture.

Towards the end of the year, local investors Grupo Hasky will open the Golden Lion casino at the elegant Grand Park Hotel, which boasts more than 300 rooms, and is set to operate a casino with 400 slots and 25 gaming tables, following the new Administration initiative to promote entertainment and tourism in the country. As other projects in the country unravel, representatives of the Tourist Ministry in Panama were on hand during the last SAGSE expo, adding to the regional impact of this event, to divulge government policy supporting the gaming industry.

ECUADOR
At this time it seems that the political threat from the President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa’s intentions to totally ban gaming in Ecuador, has petered out. In June, the president alarmed local operators and definitely scared off potential foreign investors with a broadcast saying: “We are going to totally ban this class of gambling. We will declare Ecuador free of betting games.”

Earlier in the year, Ecuador had passed legislation to control gaming machines online. However, under the Ministry of Tourism law that permits casino operations in the country, operators and local legal eagles said that what the president had meant was closing the illegal or unauthorized gaming halls operating in the country through legislation loopholes and sleight of legal hand.

Like in Peru up to the end of 2006, in Ecuador devious business people are taking advantage of casino regulations embodied in the rule book, and operate old, insecure and downright obsolete gaming devised throughout the country by means of questionable, fraudulent, and sometimes third party judicial rulings that by pass local Ministry of Tourism authorization.

URUGUAY AND PARAGUAY
Uruguay has discontinue its mixed investment licensing process where investors put the money and have some say in the promotion and security of the operations, while the state agency Casinos del Estado operate the casinos or slots operations. Under this format, investors get a percentage of the gaming revenue in operations, which in some cities are the only game in town. However, CE has said that it is prepared to entertain proposals for casino investment in the country.

Paraguay had almost no bidders for 5-year tenders in nine casinos, including one in the country’s capital city Asuncion, and now is getting another tendering process under way with a longer term, and under conditions similar to the ones used in Chile for the licensing of its new casinos, which have a 15 year licensing term and do not have government interference apart from the usual controls as imposed by a gaming commission.

Last year, a mid report comment said: “Latin America presents some decent gaming business opportunities, whether in the relatively sedate markets of the countries mentioned first, or the more risky ones such as Mexico, Bolivia and Venezuela, where regulations are a matter of very close interpretation and even closer selection of legal counsel.”

THE REST
Amongst the ‘sedate markets’ mentioned then were Colombia, Peru, Panama, Argentina and Chile. This year, however, Colombia is undergoing some regulations makeover, as a new Administration takes over; for the other four, it is business as usual.

So far, we are taking a back seat waiting to see what happens in Brazil, as it is in an election year, and the bingo legislation lies entrapped in Congress. Neighbouring Bolivia has not moved very far from its position of irregular gaming and Venezuela follows the mind set of an Administration at odds with the rest of the world.

And last, or the least we can say about Mexico, is that nothing much has changed since last year on the legislation front, apart from the emergence of class 3 gaming under the guise of the quaintly called “Clase Mexicana”, where electronic roulettes, blackjack, poker and other games operate, including progressive systems, which under the 1947 Law or its accommodating 2004 Regulations, would not be legal. Unless, of course, if Mexico was a heaven for the way of the law.

Our reading of Mexico opportunities hold more firmly this year, as many operations in the country are symptomatic of its wayward idiosyncrasy, and investors could find that an El Dorado on the horizon may prove as dismal as fool’s gold, or have all the ingredients of Tarantino’s version of El Mariachi, “with a surprisingly nasty scorpion sting in the tail for adventurers without the benefit of professional guidance.” (E-07.23.10)

© Ricki Chavez-Munoz 2010.