Ecuador will become the second Latin American country to ban casinos and gambling halls after Brazil, after winning proposal in a referendum, although sector entrepreneurs warn that the measure will encourage the underground. The "yes" to the removal of these establishments won the "no" by about 350,000 votes.
In the rest of Latin America the game is regulated and in Brazil, so far the only country to have banned, is currently being debated in Congress a bill to permit and stop the illegal gambling dens, according to the National Association of Owners and Managers Game Rooms (Anpasju) in Ecuador.
The country's president, Rafael Correa, said after the polls closed on May 7 that the removal of the casinos "will not be hit, it will establish a process can be a year or two" . The president emphasized
the objective is to create "a healthier environment for the youth and avoid that" the vice of gambling "a father loses his salary.
In the election campaign, Correa said that Ecuador should avoid following the path of Peru, which in his opinion is "awash" game rooms "until in the Amazon jungle."
Anpasju The president of the Mary Augusta Diaz, told Efe acknowledged that things "got out of hand" in Peru, where he had more than 600 amusement arcades, but said that now these institutions have been regulated .
In his view, Ecuador is the perfect time to design a control integral "of the game, but will ban the opening of clandestine gambling rooms, which encourage mafia activities and have the opposite effect they are seeking.
" No cure addiction to prohibition, "he added.
Diaz said
, following the results of the consultation, "dialogue is the last thing you can lose," and explained that will formally ask the government to "involve the whole sector suffer.
Anpasju maintains that in Ecuador there are 160 gambling halls, casinos and bingos, and the "yes" in the consultation will result in the loss of 25,000 direct jobs and 40,000 indirect jobs.
Professor of Law at the Catholic University of Ecuador, Leon Espinosa, denies that the game is a curse for the country.
"People do not go in a massive way to the casinos, is a social segment, the upper middle class and elites," he says.
Although no figures on Ecuador, in Latin America by 0.3% of the population is addicted to gaming, according to the World Health Organization cited by Diaz.
Ecuador's foreign minister, Ricardo Patiño, told Efe that by banning the casinos is to end the laundering of assets related to organized crime in this Andean country.
"We are trying to eliminate these favorable environments conducive to money laundering, know that the casinos, although they may have activities that are not illegal, they are the right opportunity for money laundering, "he said.
For his part, Vice President of the Association of Casinos and Bingo in Ecuador, and manager of Casino Square Quito, Jorge Castro, said he was "extremely angry" with the allegations.
stated that the 32 casinos in the country are "run and controlled" by the Financial Analysis Unit.
casinos Castro recalled that "legally established" provide $ 12 million annually to the public coffers of the country and operated under the Rules of Casinos and Bingo.
Ecuador's government has promised to relocate the employees of these establishments, but skepticism reigns among them.
"We are a group too large, 40,000 internally or externally. A small group can be given work, but one such is impossible," said Paco Gustavo Novoa, operations manager of Casino Plaza, 45.
A regular player of that casino, a 32 year old electronics engineer who declined to divulge his name, reports have come to earn $ 16,000 a night, but says that at times has lost up to 8,000. "Most people come for fun, is not always disease, but I know that sometimes it affects us some. What worries me is the people who work here, they rely heavily on this. "
Source: EFE
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