A new initiative in Paraguay is aiming to eliminate the monopoly on gambling in the country in order to modernise regulation.
It is the latest in a string of attempts to alter Law No 1,016/1997, Paraguay’s gambling legislation. The law currently states the “exploitation of national games of chance will be carried out exclusively by public tender”.
Paraguay’s National Commission of Gambling (Conajzar) was created by Law No 1,016/1997, which gave it the right to regulate gambling throughout the country.
One of the key objectives of the new measures is to place Conajzar under Paraguay’s National Tax Revenue Directorate (DNIT). This aims to enable it to collect more revenue and increase its efficiency by increasing its powers, allowing it to better execute its mandate.
Turning Conajzar into an effective regulator
Alongside strengthening Conajzar’s position as a regulator, the plan is to encourage “institutional optimisation” with an updated legal model.
The new framework will put the role of Conajzar general director in charge of the coordination, development, control and supervision of gambling in Paraguay.
“Through the modification of the current regulations, the powers of Conajzar will be strengthened, allowing it to be a true professional, stable and solvent regulatory body,” it said.
“All this, while accompanying the social and economic changes that require the elimination of the legal monopolies once established.”
Could Paraguay’s gambling monopolies be eradicated?
Much has changed in Paraguay since the publication of Law No 1,016/1997, which set up a system granting national franchises for sports betting and quinela. The new initiative, which is signed by the minister of finance Carlos Fernandez Valdovinos and President Santiago Peña, aims to bring Conajzar “into the 21st century”.
As part of this, the draft proposal includes the liberalisation of the gambling market in Paraguay, removing the legal monopolies. It would mean private operators could compete in the market, rather than having to secure access through tender processes.
Law No 1,016/1997 allows for the nationwide exclusive exploitation of games of chance such as lottery, telebingo and sports betting. Bingo halls and racetracks can be operated at a departmental level while, at the municipal level, types of betting such as horseracing and premises for electronic games of chance would be authorised.
The draft proposal says legal monopolies “must be removed”, accounting for the social and economic changes currently ongoing in Paraguay under the new government, which came into power in August 2023.
“Our country has witnessed marked economic and social changes, which has led to an exponential development of its markets and gambling has not been left behind by such dynamism,” the document reads.
“Rather, it has been reached by technological and economic changes that have resulted in new types of gambling as well as in the number of providers and users of them.”
