Coljuegos, the regulatory entity of games of chance in Colombia, announced that, as of August 16, it will implement a strategy of previous revision of the documentation presented by the operators of localized games, as a requirement to grant a number to each application. With this measure, they seek to simplify the procedures and reduce the response time.
"This year, we have received 489 applications from localized gaming operators. However, we found that more than 50% of these requests were filed without the complete documentation, a situation that represents an administrative wear for the entity and directly affects the response times," the President of Coljuegos, Marco Emilio Hincapié, stated.
He indicated that, through Resolution 20241200017144 of 2024, now all the applications will go through a previous review or preliminary report, within ten working days after the submission of the application. It must be filed on the Coljuegos website, in the 'Operator's Portal' section. "If we see that the operators present complete, suitable, valid, and legal documents, we will proceed to deliver a letter of approval. Otherwise, the procedure will be rejected," Hincapié said.
Then, once the request has been accepted, and in case no additional clarifications on the petition are required, the entity will proceed with the process within the following 15 working days as established by the regulation.
At the same time, the head of Coljuegos clarified that, once the request has been generated, the requesting operator will not be able to modify the inventory of gaming elements. The objective is to avoid delays caused by the modification of the requests during the process.
Additionally, the entity explained that it will also immediately reject applications made by operators that are in debt, that have been disqualified, that are accused in a process for alleged illegality, that present inconsistencies in the certificates of land use, or that have not complied with the financial indicators.
