Vidal vows to support drough-hit farmers
Buenos Aires province is overloaded with gambling options – Mar del Plata alone has seven gaming halls. During her election campaign, Governor María Eugenia Vidal vowed to tackle the problem, but she is finding that lengthy licences and pushback from the racing industry have stacked the odds against her. As experts warn that the resources to treat addiction are insufficient, it seems all bets are off when it comes to gambling.
Now she’s moved on to phase two of her plan. On January 10, Vidal announced her decision to close down one private bingo hall and three state-run casinos.
“Gambling has become a problem in the province. It has grown relentlessly for too long,” she announced at a press conference in the provincial capital of La Plata. “Many political leaders knew about it but couldn’t – or wouldn’t – stop its growth.”
However, that same day, she announced a call for tender to run 3,300 slot machines in seven casinos, a move that some in the opposition saw as at odds with her “anti-gambling crusade.”
Vidal’s strategy is to close down “problematic” gambling facilities as soon as their licence expires, since closing them down earlier could lead to legal and financial trouble, since companies could claim fair compensation. This has forced the governor to move very slowly, as some of the business licences awarded to bingo halls under the administration of Daniel Scioli (20072015) are valid until 2027.
The ruling party’s attempts to bring some order to the chaotic lottery system inherited from the previous government included a judicial battle that’s shaping up in Buenos Aires City courts, a bid to collect four billion pesos of unpaid gross income taxes from gaming czar Cristóbal López, the owner of the Puerto Madero casino and the gaming halls at Hipódromo de Palermo.
Leading this battle is lawyer Fabián Rodríguez Simón, one of Macri’s operators within the judicial system. Curiously enough, the other major judicial operator who is known to be a friend of the president is Boca Juniors club president Daniel Angelici — a long-time owner of bingo halls and a living proof of Cambiemos’ ambivalent relationship with the gambling world.
In December, López (a powerful businessman, especially during the Kirchnerite administrations) was arrested on a separate tax evasion case. WHO’S GONNA RIDE YOUR WILD HORSES Last month, Vidal doubled down (no pun intended) and