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The Colombian online gambling industry has only been regulated for the past 17 months. Since opening for business, the marketplace has managed to accumulate approximately 1.7 million customers up until the present. And it turns out that regulating Colombia’s online gambling industry has proven to be a success for the South American nation.
New Operators in Colombia
Colombia’s regulatory body, Coljuegos, provided the first remote gambling licence in April 2017, with Aquila Global Group being the inaugural operator to obtain one. As of October 2018, Coljuegos handed down the 16th operating licence in total. On that occasion, the recipient was an operator called Servicios Distrired SAS.
Moving forward, Coljuegos has revealed that the body expects to award 17 new licenses to gambling operators before 2018 comes to an end. All of this activity has prompted some other South American nations to legalise online gambling, with Brazil voting in favour along with the Argentinian region of Buenos Aries.
Player Registrations and Revenue
By the end of October 2018, Coljuegos revealed that 1,695,614 customer accounts had been registered to date. On average, the registrations are estimated at a rate of 111,000 per month. Meanwhile, the figure peaked at 258,000 new accounts, in June 2018, when the FIFA World Cup was getting underway.
Coljuegos was also able to reveal that operators had processed more than $470 million worth of wagers from when the marketplace was initially regulated in July 2017 until the present. During that timeframe, players earned back 89% of their wagers through winnings, while Coljuegos was able to raise more than $10.6 million in various fees and taxes.
Protection for Licensed Operators
Coljuegos has also made a concerted effort to ensure that licensed operators are gaining value from providing legal online gambling services to the Colombian marketplace. As a result, the regulator has established partnerships with local internet service providers and Colombia’s Ministry of Information Technologies and Police Cybernetic Centre.
Thus far, the overall partnership has succeeded in blocking 1,805 unlicensed international gambling sites from illegally serving the Colombian marketplace. Coljuegos also revealed that the volume of blockings has remained static since September, so the issue appears to have been resolved.
