Colombia Bans 325 Gambling Sites
By Casinomeister, Last updated Jul 6, 2018
Punters in Colombia had a dose of Nannyism dished out to them this week when their Ministry of Information blocked 325 gambling sites. These included renowned names such as 32Red, Betfred, Bet365 – and a slew of bingo sites and somebody’s Facebook page (which is rather stupid since the guy can just open a new one).
Coljuegos, an entity that regulates games of chance, believes that these gambling websites cause Colombians to lose as much as 350,000 million pesos. This is money that should be taxed.
In 2015, the government actually put together a legal and regulatory framework for companies that offer sports betting, card games, bingo and casinos games to register and comply, and to operate legally.
“We are the first country in Latin America to regulate these games, and we did it by reviewing not only legislation in Spain, France, UK, the most advanced on the subject, but other technical elements or game trends. This will allow us to obtain more resources for health and ensure that Colombians who use these pages are assured that they will not be ripped off and that they will pay their premiums, “said Juan Pérez, president of Coljuegos .
In addition to complying with various financial, technical and technological requirements, companies wishing to provide these services must pay about 600 million pesos for operating rights, guarantee the payment of winnings and pay taxes to the Colombian government.
But since no casino company has made this step, Coljuegos requested that the Ministry of Information Technology and Communications (and the Police) block access from the country to 325 betting sites – to include this guy’s Facebook page.
The government hopes that these companies will comply to their licensing requirements, pay the fees, and offer their punters quality service free from pirated software and similar dodginess.
It’s a shame that they took control out of the players’ hands and implemented draconian devises like banning websites from our Colombian cousins. We hope to see these companies become licensed soon.
Full list of banned websites is here: Banned Gambling websites in Colombia.
The man with the plan here at Casinomeister. Bryan Bailey has been running Casinomeister since its launch in June of 1998. He has watched the industry grow from its primeval stage to what it is now. The Meister has attended nearly 100 conferences in the past 20 years and has either been a speaker or a panel moderator for at least 60 events. He has always been an advocate of fairness and reason and is known to like German beer, a good Scotch, and astrophotography.
bryan@casinomeister.com
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