The Chilean Senate has approved new laws in order to crack down on illegal slots operating outside of casinos.
According to Juan Carlos Manríquez, a lawyer representing the Chilean Association of Gaming Casinos, the new laws reaffirm the illegality of the exploitation of slot machines outside of casinos, ruling out any justification for the illegal activity – such as including programmed prize devices or other computer terminals that would supposedly privilege the skill.
He said: “This has been an arduous and extensive journey from late 2013 to date, in which the Chilean Association of Casinos has sustained some actions for illegal gambling crimes and others in various areas of the country.
“The Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court, the appeals courts and the Comptroller’s Office have established a true legislative, technical and regulatory corpus, by which no one can doubt that slot machines outside of legal casinos are illegal and that being protected by a municipal patent on electronic entertainment is an evasion of the law.”
During the month of April, only four casinos were legally allowed to operate in all of Chile, and even so, they were only open for as long as two to 30 days with as little as 16,249 people entering them.
As a result, they produced a gross gaming revenue of $1,705m Chilean pesos (£1.2m), which converts to just 23.3 per cent of the earnings gained during the year prior.
Senator Manuel José Ossandón, noted: “We do have a responsibility towards the most humble people, because I have not seen any of these machines in the affluent neighborhoods. They are a real ordeal for people, because they are deceptive: they are not machines of skill, but of chance and that is what casinos are for.
“This is a tremendous way to launder drug money. This law is lacking, it should be much harsher. It is a real scourge in the populations. This is a cancer in the population and we have to control it.”