A new report from the Technical Secretariat of the National Council of Luck and Chance Games of Colombia, a specific area of the gaming regulator Coljuegos, shows that lotteries will receive $102m in revenues this year, a 37.2% year-on-year decline.
The pandemic has forced the industry to limit all industry segments, including lotteries, however, a gradual recovery is expected for 2021. Nevertheless, the Technical Secretariat estimates that lotteries will generate $128m in 2021, which still would be lower than the $163m that they registered in 2019.
In 1H20, lottery sales suffered a 45% drop, especially between March and June, when there was a strict lockdown in place. The Boyacá and Cundinamarca were the lotteries that suffered the most, experiencing a 52% drop, followed by Bogotá, Medellín and the Cruz Roja.
As a result of the report, the Ministry of Finance published a new decree that changes the percentages on the payment of prizes.
“The prize will be a minimum of 40% of the total amount, and the value of the promotional draws and bonuses will be excluded,” reads the document. “In this process, we change the percentage of prizes, redistributing the contribution of each prize to the return percentage.”
Last month, Colombia’s Finance Minister Alberto Carrasquilla revealed that gambling contributed 0.2% of the country’s total GDP in 2019. Carrasquilla confirmed, at the LAFT America 2020 Congress, that gambling generated more than 111k jobs and that the health and science sectors received around $165bn last year.
The Minister highlighted that gambling has been one of the most affected industries during the pandemic, and explained that the new decree ‘focuses on alleviating the pressure generated on gambling operators.’
“The Government ordered a relief package, as well as the possibility to postpone taxes for six months and the reduction of the number of machines in operation,” Carrasquilla said.
