Colombia’s Gambling Authority, Coljuegos, has encouraged improved regulation of gambling advertising by supporting a bill promoting higher industry marketing and communications standards.
Submitted to the federal government on September 29, the bill aims to establish Coljuegos as a ‘control authority’ responsible for monitoring gambling advertising across the nation.
Under the bill, Coljuegos will aim to “regulate the conditions under which authorised operators can promote advertising, sponsorship, marketing or any other form of commercial communication activities in Colombia”.
Other recommendations within the bill stated that new rules and practices must be adopted to better regulate the responsibilities of licensed operators working with media partners and third parties, while suggesting that “operators have a set limit for advertising investments based on their prior year’s spend”.
Coljuegos stated: “The advertising of authorised operators and games offered must be clearly identified through the approved brand for each of them.
“In commercial communications from gaming operators, the company name, name or commercial image of the gaming operator whose activities are being promoted must be clearly indicated.”
Under the authority of the Coljuegos, operators will be asked to submit a ‘marketing investment plan’ to allow the control authority to authorise and monitor gambling advertising campaigns.
New operators joining Coljuegos’ jurisdiction will have their marketing spend set as an ‘intermediate scale’ depending on the market’s overall advertising output.
To take action against disobeying licensees, Coljuegos highlighted that “operators that exceed their ad spending limits, will face fines up to 100 per cent of the value of their campaign spend.”
As sports sponsorships continue to be on the rise throughout Latin America, Coljuegos has demanded the ability to order any sports organisation to terminate their gambling sponsorships if they’re involved with an unlicensed operator.
Moreover, the bill will only allow sports sponsorships to be formed with ‘professional teams’ that are sanctioned by a government-led sports authority, with all sponsorship-related expenses also required to be submitted.
The organisation also informed online media platforms that promoting online gambling on websites, videos or social media posts will need to be accompanied by age limit and responsible gaming warnings.
Platforms will also be required to ensure that audiences are able to control whether they want to view or block gambling marketing.