Chile’s National Economic Prosecutor’s Office (FNE) has accused Enjoy, Dreams and Marina Del Sol of collusion regarding permits for state-owned casinos.

On the latest episode of iGaming Daily, Fernando Noodt was joined by SBC Noticias Editor Lucía Gando to delve deeper into the story. 

Fernando explained that just two of 12 potential permits experienced competition from the three operators which alerted the Chilean regulator. 

He said: “The Chilean regulator noticed and said, hey something’s up here. After actually investigating this accusation from the regulator, the economic prosecutor’s office claims to have had access to several chats from high-level executives in the three operators.

“All three had been in talks with each other to make sure they would, allegedly, get their permits.”

Jaime Wilhelm, Claudio Fischer, and Claudio Tessada from Dreams, Henry Comber from Enjoy and Nicolás Imschenetzky from Marina Del Sol are all being targeted over the accusations.

Fernando noted that Imschenetzky is the only one of the five exempt from fines as he took advantage of a legal figure that gives participants of a collusion scheme the chance to give evidence to the economic prosecutor’s office.

By doing this, he has suggested that the collusion did occur, however, Dreams and Enjoy have both strongly denied any wrongdoing.

“Dreams says they reject any accusation that threatens competition and practices contrary to the health of the industry,” explained Lucía. “They also noted that during the investigation, they provided all the necessary information to the investigators and will use all their means to get the tribunal to dismiss the complaint.

“As to Enjoy, they also said it has strict internal standards that govern the bidding process in which it participates and that align with established regulations and regulatory frameworks. They criticised the self-accusation by a third party and also like Dreams, it said that it will use  all legal mechanisms to defend themselves in a process that has just begun.”

Concluding the podcast, Fernando added that Chilean politician Nicolás Grau has labelled the case as “extremely serious” and warned that the process could lead to “criminal consequences”.