FENASICAJH urges Chile to advance online betting regulation
Regulation2 min read
In brief
- FENASICAJH president Diego Valerio Ávalos urged progress on Chile's online betting regulation in a BioBioChile column on 29 October.
- Ávalos said unregulated platforms compete unequally with land-based casinos and that formalisation could create thousands of formal jobs.
- He criticised a legislative debate focused on enforcement and tax collection, and gave no numerical jobs estimate.
Diego Valerio Ávalos, president of the Federación Nacional de Sindicatos de Casinos de Juego y Hoteles (FENASICAJH), called for progress on Chile's proposed online betting regulation in an opinion column published by BioBioChile on 29 October. He argued that unregulated platforms compete on unequal terms with land-based casinos and that the legislative delay is postponing opportunities for formal employment.
In the column, titled "Regulación de las apuestas en línea: la oportunidad de empleo que el Gobierno dejó pasar", Ávalos said the government had the chance to add indications to the bill to promote local job creation but did not take it. He said that obliging the platforms to operate formally in Chile could create thousands of formal jobs, and that the legislative discussion cannot be limited to enforcement and tax collection.
The FENASICAJH president linked the situation to staff reductions at land-based casinos and the loss of jobs, particularly in the country's regions. He warned that each day of delay allows betting sites to keep operating without the obligations a formalised market would carry, and that an opportunity to create registered employment is therefore lost.
Ávalos also said regulating online betting does not mean promoting gambling, but setting conditions for an activity that already exists, and he linked the need to advance with user protection and the ordering of the market. The column did not give a numerical estimate of the jobs that formalisation could create.