This is how online sports game operators operate in Colombia

On June 19, the punters of Rushbet.co, the tenth online gaming operator licensed by Coljuegos, dropped their forecasts for the Colombia-Japan match at the 2018 World Cup in Russia. that James Rodriguez would attend the first goal of the selection. This was planned, but once José Pekerman's payroll was known and his decision not to include 10, the quotas changed.

This is how the online sportsbook industry is evolving. "A game or race works like the stock market, what we call quotas are the favorites, they are the ones who determine how much is paid at that time, the favorites have a smaller share, for example, for the match. Denmark-Australia on June 21, the European country was the favorite by paying $ 2 a bet, while he won, the country of Oceania would make the player $ 4.15, "says Omar Calvo, General Manager of Rushbet, US holding company Rush Street Interactive.

The tenth online gaming operator in Colombia opened on June 13, 2018, one day before the start of the World Cup in Russia, the world's largest football event. Its burst took place nearly a year after the creation of the legal betting platforms in the country.

Wplay.co, a Medellin company, was the first to operate in July 2017, nine months after Colombia became the first US country to regulate the issue of online gambling, an affair booming. In addition to Colombian operators, Spain, the United States and Italy have also invested abroad, which saw in the legalization an opportunity to expand their business.

Read more: Beginning of the online gaming competition.

theme of the regularization of online games has responded to the need of the state, through Coljuegos, to control the pages that offer the service for more transparency in their activities, such as the payment guarantee of the price and treatment of user information, promote responsible gaming and generate more revenue.

"At Coljuegos we have objectives we are working on, the first is to increase the collection for health, which has increased by 35% in the last two years. Since the creation of the entity, nearly 19,000 objects have been seized, including electronic machines, computers and objects that operated illegally throughout the country. about 300 illegal websites in coordination with the National Police and the Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies, "said Juan B. Pérez Hidalgo, president of Coljuegos

Coljuegos has closed its doors 337 pages in illegal gambling line.

In the line of attack against illegality, the public entity asks operators for technical, financial and legal requirements to ensure transparency. Website ends with .co, sharing phone and contact numbers, number and date of the dealership agreement, responsible gambling policy, as an option to establish a maximum amount of bets.

financial level the essential is that operators have the ability to pay prices. "This involves investments in technology, outlets, information verification, databases, the result randomness and which are connected online with Coljuegos," said Pérez [19659011]. allows operators to work up to five years, as stipulated by law. Among the determinations established by Coljuegos, the return to players is 83%, the state exploitation rights are 15%, leaving 2% of revenues to businesses, in addition to the lost games that generate their profits.

In this regard, from July 2017 to April 2018, online games contributed $ 14,000 million, of which more than $ 6,000 million reached the health system, benefiting more than 6,000 patients.

These gains show that the online gaming industry is very promising. Spain, for example, receives 300,000 million euros from this activity (more than a billion pesos). On the other hand, the demand of sports betting players is growing.

In less than a year, there are 870,000 registered users, of which 577,004 are clbadified as badets (a metric that usually usually takes into account activity in the last 30 days).

These players have wplay.co authorized pages, betplay.com.co, colbet.co, zamba.co, codere.com.co, mijugada.co, masgol.co, luckia. co, sportium.com.co, rushbet.co, aquijuego.co and apuestalo.co, ten of which are sports betting, which include the betting terms of football, cycling and tennis, electronic sports, chess and darts .

The other two game options are non-sporty, like weather forecasts or beauty pageants, as well as casino events. In all these cases, the user must register by providing information such as the full name, citizenship or immigration card, the residence address. This information is verified by each operator.

"Once registered, there are other tools related to responsible gambling.We know that betting can generate certain diseases like gambling and we have tools that people can self-regulate. set the amounts they want to bet on the platform, on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.The change is going through a process of approval and is not immediate.The process is delayed from so that the desire or the urgency of this change does not come from a game action. We also have non-logical or irrational behavior detection systems, some for the prevention of money laundering The platform does not allow anyone to use it for illegal action, "says Omar Calvo, CEO of Rushbet.

Once the registration process is complete, the player can credit his account with a credit card, points of sale physical or debit such as Baloto and Efecty. And, likewise, prices can be withdrawn by these same means. "This allows us a little more capillarity at the national level to reach all municipalities in the country and allow people to access the platform," says Calvo.

Rushbet's plans are that in two years, instead of eight employees, there are 100 people in total. They are motivated because figures from Coljuegos give the badurance that it is a profitable and burgeoning business, since six out of ten Colombians are betting. Although chance and Baloto are the preferred option of these users, the big challenge is to migrate them to online platforms.