Recap 2009: South America Edition
You don’t hear much about the South American online casino gambling industry
these days – and that’s largely because the majority of European internet
gambling groups have really focused their efforts on the rapidly growing and
largely legal European market. Eastern Europe is really opening up these days
and Western European facing online casinos have focused on this next-door market
rather than navigating the rough avenues of regulation in South America. That’s
about wholly where the South American market stood over the past year – several
key South American markets had the opportunity to welcome the foreign gambling
industry (and the revenues this industry would bring) and instead stood firm in
support of confusing and unclear gambling regulations that allude to banning
regulations.
Argentina in particular has some very real growth opportunity for the online
casinos – and the internet gambling groups who spent the money and attempted to
legally enter this market were forced out of the market on legalities that are
not clearly outlined and have questionable relevance to internet gambling in
particular. Additionally, as the South American online casino gambling market
became more protected by state gambling groups and monopolies, foreign
governments and groups issued warnings to Argentina and Chile that blocking this
form of trade is, ultimately, unhealthy for the national governments. The
current blocks and regulatory bans in South America were likened to the Great
Depression that struck the states decades past.
But the South American market hasn’t budged a bit and online casinos are a bit
of a lost cause there right now until new regulations come into effect. For that
reason, South America really wasn’t on the media radar and few international
gambling groups are still looking favorably at this market. |