Conalot unifies inspection and sanction criteria in Venezuela
The Venezuelan gambling regulator met with state operators to agree on how to inspect and when to sanction. The National Lottery Commission, together with the Official Public Welfare and Social Assistance Institutions, fine-tuned the procedures governing betting activity, with the stated objective of ensuring that supervision functions uniformly across every corner of the country and establishing a common criterion for what the State should demand from an operator, both legally and technologically.
The meeting brought together the areas involved in control. The Directorate of Fiscalization, the Directorate of Communicational Management, the Directorate of Registration, and the Strategic Monitoring Coordination of the agency participated, with the purpose of aligning supervision, raising the level of transparency in operations, and ensuring that every betting point in the country complies with current regulations.
The work was organized into five main areas. The first involved a technical review of how inspections are conducted, with what methodology and protocol, both in physical establishments and on digital channels. The second clarified the extent of the agency's sanctioning power and what requirements obligated parties must keep up to date. The third established a single legal criterion for ordering the temporary or definitive closure of establishments that commit operational offenses.
The two remaining areas concern logistics and technology. Participants agreed on how the supervision schedule for each region would be delivered and set the technical requirements that a video lottery machine or a commercial digital platform must meet for its operation to be approved.
Conalot presented the articulation as a decisive step forward to strengthen the sector's management, and reaffirmed their commitment to legality, legal certainty, and the rights of the bettor, clarifying that the revenue generated by the activity continues to be allocated to finance social assistance and public welfare.
It is worth highlighting with whom the criteria were unified, because therein lies the particularity of the Venezuelan model. The IOBPAS are state welfare institutions that operate gambling and at the same time form part of the institutional scheme that supervises it, so this meeting is not a dialogue between the regulator and private entities but an internal state agreement on how to control itself, which is precisely the point where the scheme loses independence. Furthermore, the announcement does not provide verifiable figures, deadlines, or goals, so its value is that of a signal about the direction the regulator is moving, rather than a measure with measurable effects from now on.
Tags: Conalot, IOBPAS, gambling regulation in Venezuela, video lottery