Now, this is a situation that has not been well received by the industry, and although we are assured that the event will return to Puerto Rico in 2008, some important companies will surely have lost interest by then.

Meanwhile, the Central American event organizers are getting ready for the third edition of the show on June 14 & 15 at the Atlapa Convention Center in Panama. The major international slot machine manufacturers and gaming suppliers will be exhibiting at SAGSE Centroamerica, such as: Boss Gaming, Merkur, Ainsworth, Bally, Betstone, Dek International, Fournier, Frontier, GPI and TCS Huxley, amongst many others.

Congratulations to Patricia Alarcon for getting a contract to present her award winning show ‘Noches de Azar’ (Gambling Nights) on Colombian TV. We are sure that she will play a big role in this beautiful country promoting our industry, just as much as she is doing in Argentina. Right now, we are in Europe calling on Head Office, and visiting friends in Amsterdam, Spain and Ireland before we depart for South Africa and Cambodia. I’ll tell you all about it, pix and all, in the next issue.

Cheers,

Ricki.

CHILE TO START LICENSING PROCESS FOR 2 CASINOS

Unofficial news from Chile indicates that starting on 1 January 2008, the Chile regulators will receive applications for casino licences in two regions. According to the 2005 legislation, the country can authorize up to 24 casinos. With 15 new authorizations approved last year, plus 7 concessions for municipal casinos that operate under previous legislation, there are 2 licences outstanding for the new process that will end in March 2008.

Castro is one of the cities which did not manage to win a casino licence, and local representative Gabriel Ascencio is keen to get the process going to make a better job of Castro’s presentation this time round, and get a casino licence authorized. Ascencio said that the casino will help promote tourism and economic development for the province as a whole.

According to the Representative, the casino would be part of a complex with a 5 star hotel and conference centre, located in a strategic place in the city. Ascencio said: “This will help promote a great number of activities related to the community and will increase the tourist trade, and it is for this reason that this is a priority issue for us. Hopefully, we’ll get better support this time round, and get a casino for Castro”.

A BET ON PATAGONIA

It may be the end of the world to some but Ushuaia in Argentina is increasingly becoming a tourist centre and, along with the tourists, has come hotel and casino development. Patagonia or Tierra del Fuego or, as once marked on maps, Tierra Incognita, offers spectacular scenery and snow sports, and Ushuaia’s deep harbour has become the gateway to Antarctica. Some 55,000 people live in the city and tourism brings around US$120 million into the economy each year.

In 2005 the provincial betting regulator IPRA renewed the casino licence of Casino Club S.A. for ten years, and Casino Club Ushuaia features around 150 slot machines and 9 table games. There are now non-stop daily flights from Buenos Aires to this previously remote region with pristine snow-capped mountain peaks located along the Beagle Channel. Cruise ships also dock regularly, mainly through the warmer months of December to March, and last year nearly 250,000 visitors arrived in Ushuaia.

The Patagonia region of South America is seeing growth in its casino industry and Ushuaia, the most southern city in the world is surprisingly busy, actively promoting itself in order to prolong the tourist season. There are also moves to preserve the unique characteristics of Ushuaia and not introduce too many high-rise buildings. Neuquen, the largest city in Argentina’s Patagonian region and the administrative capital, saw the opening of Pinnacle Entertainment’s US$14 million Casino Magic in July 2005.

LAW CHANGES PROPOSED FOR PARAGUAY

The parliamentary Commission for Economics and Finance in Paraguay last week indicated that it would meet on Tuesday, 8 May to analyze a proposal to create regulations for gaming. A bill presented by Representative Zulma Gómez seeks to modify Articles 21 & 22 of Law #1.016/97, which establishes the legal parameters for the exploitation of games of chance.

President of the Commission, Hans Thielmann, has arranged a meeting with the President of the National Gaming Commission, Cristian Vera, to discuss the various proposals before Legislators, including suggested changes presented by Zulma Gomez to regulate lottery play. This could be beneficial to local governments, the State and create more employment.

Members of Parliament hope to analyze other proposals in order to establish a legal framework for gaming in Paraguay High on the list of priorities is limiting the three daily lottery draws to just one, as at present the twenty-one weekly draws cause confusion amongst those betting. The ultimate aim of the discussions is to formulate a gaming law that provides more control over gaming venues in Paraguay and increases public participation for more gaming tax revenue.

9 GAMING ROOMS CLOSE IN VENEZUELA

Owners and workers of nine bingos and casinos on Margarita Island, off Venezuela’s coast in the Caribbean, closed as a measure to protest against the new Gaming Tax which started on May first. According to the president of Bingo Las Vegas, they hoped that the strike measures on Margarita help to spread the closure action throughout the country and take the industry’s case to the Supreme Court to change the law.

The new gaming tax law in Venezuela has increased tax over a thousand-fold, especially for casino table games and slot machines that are also available in bingos in the country. As from now, each table game is taxed between US$2,100 and US$5,600 per month, while slot machines will pay between US$1,750 and US$3,500 per month, placing slot machine tax at around US$58-188 per machine per day. This is one of the largest tax hikes in the world.

The tax increase debate has been going on for the best part of a year, since Representative Hiroshima Bravo suggested even higher gaming taxes based on hearsay and the gross misreading of local slot stats. In the meantime, tax authorities had promised that tax increases would be ‘sensible’. However, vociferous tirades against casinos as ‘centres of corruption’ by President Hugo Chavez pushed the balance in favour of such tax increases.

We have had reports from Venezuela that the Margarita strike protests will spread throughout the country. In our opinion such measures would play straight into the hands of Chavez’s doom and gloom casino attacks. Both operators and workers should seek to change the gaming tax law through the Courts, and seek injunctions against the new tax law as a matter of urgency.

Of course, serious investors in the Venezuelan gaming industry are furious, because what the tax law does is drive small operators underground. One gaming executive said: “If the government continues with this ridiculous law then this entertainment industry will be driven underground. This government has already allowed many illegal gambling operations, operations that don’t pay tax or subscribe to any law.”

What these new measures do to the industry is to negate the existence of smaller operators, who now need in excess of US $80 per day per machine to be able to subsist. Failure to generate these revenues would ensure closure of such businesses, with the result of some going illegal and turning operators into criminals, similar to the online gambling industry in the US.

Prohibitive laws are often enshrined by paranoid rulers and, whether he wants it or not, President Chavez is emulating his nemesis President Bush as he attempts a paternalistic approach that died with the tin-pot dictators of the last century. If President Chavez wishes to implant a socialist doctrine in his country, then he must start with the basic culture of respect for honourable endeavour that is of benefit to society.

The gaming industry as a whole is not made up of gangsters and criminals but of people who work for a living with dignity, and operators who seek a rational legal framework to protect their investment. You can find gangsters and criminals in most other industries, whether they are in banking, finance, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, insurance, the clergy or the armed forces, but the gaming industry is far too well regulated to cosset such elements, if they exist, for long.

ILLEGAL PROTECTION FOR CASINOS

TO END

The Attorney General of Peru last month accused Olga Rosario Castañeda Ayulo, a provincial judge in the northern city of Cajamarca, of giving illegal Habeas Corpus protection for casinos presented by the Mustafa Group, to enable their operation of slot machines parlours and casinos to continue.

After investigations by the Internal Control Department of the Attorney General’s Office, Judge Castañeda was deemed to have committed several legal administrative crimes to favour the companies Masaris, represented by Basem Aguinaga, Costa del Sol represented by Mario Doud and Proyecciones Recreativas represented by Marina Abad.

According to the investigations, Judge Castañeda issued sentences on Habeas Corpus cases presented by the above companies, favouring them on issues that were not within her competence for such cases. As a consequence, several slots operations that had been closed down on licensing grounds were permitted to be reopened, in clear contravention of established gaming regulations.

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