Also a national director of Lotteries and Quinielas of Uruguay and a member of the Executive Committee of the WLA, Gama -who was awarded with his entrance to the 2018 Lottery Industry Hall of Fame of the Public Gaming Research Institute (PGRI) - explained that the region is growing in terms of games but it still has enormous potential if governments focus on the regulation of online gaming and the fight against illegal gambling.
During an interview with El Diario del Juego, the president of CIBELAE said that the gaming activity is growing in the region, but that it would have to have a greater increase if some issues that are holding back are resolved. He also said that online sports betting accounts for about 70 percent of the market while the physical game "is almost limited, so growth comes from the other side, from the virtual."
Among the countries that are between the legalization of online gambling and the silence of leaving everything as it is, Gama explained that Brazil, that can become one-third of the regional market, is in the swing of legalizing or not, what would generate "a major stagnation" if nothing changes.
For Gama, the prohibition of gambling is a "big mistake" because the administrations think that prohibiting an activity can make it disappear as if by magic. "In the whole area of casinos today we have Brazil, Ecuador and Venezuela, they are the three countries where gaming is prohibited and that is why they think that people do not play ... Well, it's worse, because on the one hand people like it that of crossing the line and the other is not very clear what is legal and what is illegal," he explains and recognizes that the industry should be self-critical because information is missing.
"Sometimes there are governments that do not want to report on the issue of games and that is a mistake, because misinformation makes the illegal one advance. I believe that the prohibition is a deception that some people want to believe and actually there is nothing like a very good regulation and that the state is behind as guarantor," he concluded.
Source: GMB / El Diario del Juego
