The Treasury Committee of the Senate began to deal this week with the bill that empowers the Executive Branch to directly exploit online gambling in casinos and to authorize it in concessionaires that already have licenses for face-to-face gambling, both in the mixed system and in the private system.
During the session, the representatives of the Cipriani group defined the initiative as “incomplete”. In addition, they insisted on the need for a comprehensive regulation that orders the entire system of online games of chance and grant equal conditions for participating companies. The Italian businessman, Giusseppe Cipriani, is leading the project to build a luxury hotel with a private casino on the grounds of the former San Rafael hotel in Punta del Este, with a flat investment of US$200 million.
Lawyer Pablo Monsuárez explained that the bill only regulates online games and not online games of chance. In this sense, he expressed thathe regulates online casino games, puts them in the hands of the National Casino Directorate, and leaves the rest of online games of chance in the hands of the National Directorate of Lotteries and Pools “which has no competence to take charge”, according to the stenographic version of the commission session to which he agreed The Observer.
illegal resolutions
Monsuárez added that three resolutions are added to this “illegal” of 2020, which in his opinion must be repealed and that complete “a panorama that will not do the gaming system any good.” Those resolutions issued by the National Directorate of Lotteries and Quinielas “give the entire online game” to the Quinielas Banking company, “free” and “without an investment in return.”
He also stressed that one of those decrees gives him the possibility of exploiting the face-to-face betting channel, when the Tourism Law says that there must be a public tender.
“I have nothing against the Bank, I clarify it just in case, except for the fact that it does not pay canon of anything. As a Uruguayan I do not agree with that. ¡Don’t pay canon! It invoices US$ 500 million, but does not pay canon. (…) Enjoy pays canon, Cipriani is going to pay it, Codere pays canon. Everyone pays canon, as appropriate, “said the lawyer.
“If this, which is a partial advance, remains as it is, there will be a system that is hemiplegic, lame and unfair. What it will generate is that there are players or participants in the market that have clear commercial advantages and not large infrastructures to maintain. It is nothing against this specific company; it would be the same if they were one, two or three companies. Here it is necessary to be clear with equal conditions for those who participate, something that does not happen, ”he insisted.
For her part, the lawyer Andrea Oliva stated that the Cipriani group wants to make the investment, but sometimes “it becomes difficult to explain what the situation will be in the future if all this continues.” She also said that in January 2022 the concession contract was signed despite the fact that the issue was not resolved, as “a sign of the group moving forward and respecting its word.”
Marcelo Umpierrez
a new partner
In February, Cipriani presented as investment partner to Naguib Sawiris, an Egyptian multimillionaire businessman strongly linked to the construction, tourism and telecommunications sector who heads the Weather Investment holding company.
Before, in December 2021, the group signed the concession contract for the operation of a private casino for 20 years at the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF)., which is conditional on the construction of a luxury hotel. Together with the signing of the contract, the company Fosara – the name of the Italian Cipriani’s company – deposited a guarantee amounting to $7.8 million.
The new project consists of three horizontal towers of different heights behind the traditional hotel. First, it would begin with the reconstruction of the hotel and the foundation where the private casino – key to the business – and the rest of the services will be located.
And only later, with that part already operational, would the second stage be passed in which the first of the three towers would be erected, to the extent that there is demand.
The new plan is being studied by the administration, which must approve it and send it to the Departmental Board for voting.
The base investment that is managed today is about US$ 200 million. That is the floor for the first stage of hotel, casino and amenities that is included in the tender. For stage two, the investment will depend on what type of towers are built.
“You have in front of you, as in this specific case, the possible investor and different advisers who ask you how the issue of authorizations for the building, for the casino, and what type of licenses are needed. That’s where you start to skate ugly, because there is no way to explain it. When one says that online gambling is there but it is not and talks about the three resolutions, well, it is very difficult for people, investors, to come. It becomes very difficult, very complicated.” Monsuarez said.
Bergara: the legal scheme “is a mess”
The Broad Front senator, Mario Bergara, affirmed that his political force will present in brief a comprehensive project that will propose a modernization of the entire legal and organizational scheme of the issue of games of chance in the State. According to Bergara, today the organizational structure of gaming in Uruguay “is a mess”, because at the MEF level there are two directions that “confuse” the regulation and operation of gaming.
In this sense, he explained that there is an “archaic” segmentation – casinos on one side and lotteries and pools on the other – and with two different legal statuses, to the point that the General Directorate of Casinos is not even integrated into the National Budget. Bergara is in favor of having at the MEF level a organism that is of regulation and control, and a decentralized service that is in charge of the state activity in matters of gaming operation.
“In this project we also thought of entrusting the Executive Power with two main things: the regulation for what was incipient and today is a more flagrant reality, I am referring to online games, and also the regulation of slot machines, which abound in the country in tens of thousands, with the logical counterpart of criminalization in case of illegal action”, he stated.
