and procedures are complied with. So that’s an introduction to how policy is made and the structures involved. MD: Thank you. Jaime, you want to give us a feel for how things work in Puerto Rico? JR-E In Puerto Rico, we have various verticals. The lotteries are under the jurisdiction of the Treasury Department in Puerto Rico. The other gaming verticals there are allowed in Puerto Rico are under our jurisdiction. Those are land based casinos and horseracing, those two verticals have been regulated for over 75 years in Puerto Rico. The Gaming Commission has this unique characteristic that we have some verticals with a long history, so we have that learning experience. But also we have new verticals such as sports betting, both online and retail, fantasy contests and slot machines. In terms of the structure of the Gaming Commission, we have a board of commissioners that have certain powers and responsibilities, and also the office of the Executive Director, which is the position that I’m holding now with other responsibilities, including the management and administration of the agency. We are a state government agency at the state level in Puerto Rico. In terms of the verticals that we regulate, we have 18 casinos in Puerto Rico right now with over 5000 slot machines. We expect that two more casinos are going to open this year. In terms of horse racing, we have been regulating horse racing for over 100 years. Horse racing in Puerto Rico has been running since the late 1800s. And we have over 500 Off Track Betting shops throughout the island that receive basically 90% or 95% of the bets that are made on horse racing activity. And besides the horse racing activity itself, we got slot machines, within the OTBs, we actually have now over 500 OTBs in total, and which 400 of them also have slot machines. In terms of the new verticals, this first reading of a new gambling act was approved in 2019, following repeal of the previous act by the Supreme Court. It allows both retail land-based and online and began its operation in February of 2022. The online operation began recently in July. Right now we have three operators. Two of them are also online. The third one is just retail. And we hope that soon they’re gonna also offer online wagering. The other vertical is fantasy contest which is currently not operating but we expect that is going to be up and running as well soon. MD: Alright, Renee, give us a feel for how things are going in the Netherlands. RJ: Rene Janson is my name, and I’m the chair of the Executive Board of KSA, the Dutch gambling authority. We are responsible for supervision and enforcement on all kinds of games that you can think of, land-based and online. The oldest ones are of course land-based. We have a state lottery. We have charity lotteries. We have lots of arcades, and we have Holland Casino a monopoly on table games, so to say. And since October 2021, the online market has been regulated, so became a legal market. After something like 10 to 20 years of political discussion because it was and is a highly controversial subject. The aim of this legalization is of course, to create a safe legal market for our players. And I think the driving force behind this that that we had hundreds of thousands of people playing online on an illegal basis, illegal websites entering the country from several parts of the world, including other parts of Europe. So that has been regulated by now. We have several priorities on that kind of our supervisory enforcement which are Responsible Gambling and compliance with advertising restrictions which we will talk about that later, compliance with rules on AML, and of course, the combat of the black market. When it comes to the policy making structure, of course, it is the Minister of Legal Protection who is responsible for gambling, policy and legislation. KSA is an independent body. So he’s not our boss, he cannot give orders to us. We are not even part of the legal state, because we also have to supervise state companies like Holland casino and some other monopolies. So, when we are in discussion with the ministry, it is as an advisor. We can be asked to give advice to them. And our reports can also be sent to Parliament in the case that they wish to take some initiatives on some new policy or guidance or whatsoever. MD: Thank you. You can tell that we have three regulators with very broad authority over lots of different aspects of the gambling industry. And so as we as we look toward the future, I’m gonna ask Caroline, how does your regulatory framework foster profitable and safe market conditions both for the people that are regulated and for the people that are playing?.
71
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker