going to gamble, gambling in the legal regulated marketplaces. So if you could talk a little bit about sort of what you were doing with advertising restrictions and what you see happening in the future. RJ: There have been some restrictive movements in a short time because our market opened up less than two years ago. The opening of the market was accompanied by a flood of advertising and marketing mainly on TV and that generated a lot of political and public debate and uproar. And so there was a swift political reaction, which led to the fact that in July 2022, a ban on the use of celebrities in ads was introduced. So former sportsman or actors, they are not allowed to be used in ads. That was the first restriction. The second one, and this is quite far reaching, is that there has been introduced on the first of July of this year 2023, a ban on advertising on non-targeted means. So gambling advertising is no longer allowed on radio, TV papers, the public area outside marketing. It is still possible to advertise in a more targeted way which move from the public area and broadcast to the internet, and social media. And then there’s an additional restriction there, that all operators and affiliates have to demonstrate the majority of views are reaching adults of 24 years and older. So you are not allowed to target minors, but also the group from 18 to 24 years, and other vulnerable groups are protected. So that comes quite near to a total ban on advertising which generated a stiff reaction from the industry, from affiliates and others, and also some confusion because how do you demonstrate this? How can we do this on a technical sense? How can we seek the small possibilities that are left in our country? And that is something everybody now is working on with techniques like Google Analytics or others. And we as a regulator, of course, have to find out how do we supervise this and how do we make a clear distinction between when it is compliant and when is it not compliant? And then do we force them to be compliant, do we apply extra pressure and ultimately impose fines? So operators are a bit upset and they have to accept it because it’s official law. But everybody is seeking answers to these questions. MD: How are things in Puerto Rico in the advertising industry? JR-E: It depends on the vertical. Casinos cannot advertise themselves within the Puerto Rico population, they can advertise themselves from the outside of Puerto Rico. This goes back to when they created the regulatory structure in 1948. The purpose was to use casinos as a tool for tourism attraction. In terms of sports betting and other verticals, there are no restrictions but we are seeing the Commission requires operators to highlight the tools that are available to prevent compulsive gaming. There is a government agency that is administrator and one of the board of commissioners that deals with mental health issues, and they have a special program to address compulsive gaming. Actually the casino industry, horse racing industry supports them and also the lotteries. So they have an annual budget to address compulsive gaming and operators in sports betting that are advertising right now have to give space in their commercials to highlight the tools that are available on the program in Spanish for compulsive players. In terms of horse racing, they do not advertise so much outside the industry environment. In the case of fantasy contests, there is no restriction but because the activity hasn’t begun yet there is currently no advertising. But obviously, we should evaluate alternatives to imposing more restrictions to make sure that those advertisements doesn’t get to minors or to the wider population. Away from the ban on casino advertising we don’t have any restrictions, we just require the operators to highlight the tools that are out there for preventing compulsive gaming. MD: before we hear from South Africa, are we now seeing online advertising and starting to hear rumblings in the legislative branch or in any other part of the government, that there should be additional restrictions that passed as law in Puerto Rico? JR-E: There are the usual suspects, you know, the legislators that are against gaming at all. So they have always been trying to get some restrictions. But besides that group, I don’t see anything. I don’t heard rumors, I just heard about rumors about amending the law, but for other aspects that are not advertising. MD: How about in South Africa? How are you guys dealing with advertising and advertising restrictions?
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