Colombian journalist Juan Manuel Ramirez Montero recalls a conversation he had regarding banks’ support of the casino industry.
“He said, ‘I don’t like the sector because I think all the criminal activity converges there,’” Montero recalled.
And Evert Montero Cardenes, president of the Colombian company Fecoljuegos, related the tale of a friend mentioning a news report of residents complaining about a casino opening in a nearby mall.
He also said casino employees have been refused a credit card because they are employed by the casino business.
Suffice it to say that Latin America and South America have more difficult casino-and-bank relationships than those in the United States.
That’s why four panelists at Juegos Miami discussed “Getting to the Root of the Problem: How to Improve the Relationship Between the Gaming and Financial Sectors” Thursday morning. Topics included how can operators get a bank guarantee as part of their license requirements and increasing dialogue between regulators, operators and banks to improve the situation.
Jaime Irizarry, Director of Games of Chance for the Puerto Rico Tourism Company, tried to find common ground by relating the idea consumers had of banks in a time long ago.
“Casinos and banks are the children of the same mother. But they don’t know it,” he said. “When banks were created, they were stigmatized as systems that exploited the needy.”
He noted that those who receive, say, a $100,000 loan for a home can end up paying about $300,000 over 30 years when interest is included.
The panelists also discussed challenges such as credit card fraud, which is prevalent in Latin and South America. That activity is among those that have made banks warier. Meanwhile, casinos have worked to improve their policing of policing potential money-laundering situations, and have attempted to become more businesslike in their entire operations, the panelists said.
And Montero, who writes for El Tiempo and Diario, notes that the gaming industry and government have been historically linked in some jurisdictions. Such a relationship can help generate more support from the public, he notes.
“As time has passed, you find that the industry of gaming is gaining a more positive reputation,” he said.
