Paraguay to hold tender for sports betting monopoly license

Paraguay is reportedly planning to shake up its sports betting industry by reducing its current seven licensed operators down to just one.

Last week, RDN.com reported that Paraguay’s National Gaming Commission (Conjazar) is preparing a Highlander-style ‘there can be only one’ showdown by forcing the country’s existing seven sports betting operators to compete for a single monopoly concession.

According to Conjazar, the majority of the seven betting operators have been operating under provisional licenses granted by the executive branch a year-and-a-half ago, although one operator – Daruma Sam S.A., which operates under the Aposta.la brand (although that brand is the subject of a trademark dispute with another provisional licensee) – has been conducting retail and online wagering operations in Paraguay since 2014, which may or may not give it the edge in the bidding war to come.

Conjazar justified its decision to streamline the country’s betting sector as a means of boosting the government’s tax take. The government of this country of less than 7m people currently charges operators 4% of their betting revenue, but this results in the state only collecting about $140k per month. The prevailing theory is that a single operator will be willing to pay a higher rate if the government eliminates their competition.