Paraguay gambling association seeks answers on delayed reforms

APOJA has asked the Chamber of Deputies to clarify whether reforms remain on the tablet.

Paraguay.- The gambling industry association APOJA has asked Paraguay’s Chamber of Deputies of Paraguay why plans to review gambling amendments have stalled. The body wants to know whether the review is delayed or has been scrapped entirely since there have been no advances since April, when a review of the proposed reforms was put back by three months.

APOJA president Lorena Rojas has argued that the reforms are needed before the current quiniela contract expires to prevent renewal under the same monopoly system.

Late last year, fourteen deputies had agreed on six articles intended to end the monopoly over gambling in Paraguay following the controversy over the sports betting tender overseen by the gambling regulator Conajzar. The regulator had awarded the national franchise to Daruma SAM, which operates the Aposta.LA betting shops in Gran Asunción, but the decision was suspended and the competition watchdog CONACOM launched a probe into the regulator.

This led APOJA to entreat president Santiago Peña’s new government to reform both Conajzar and Paraguay’s gambling legislation. It proposed a reduction in Conajzar’s powers that would convert it into a supervisory agency with no licensing responsibilities and urged the government to open the sports betting market to competition.