The reasons behind the departure of Sun, the South African who founded the Monticello casino

The country’s casino industry lives in a total rebate, with the two main players on each side of the table, waiting for the next play and watching their cards. It’s about Sun Dreams and Enjoy, the latter trying to lift their heads and recover after several bad rounds. His rival, Sun Dreams, with a renewed strategy, after having made a bet as strong as it is risky.

The sector has experienced months of intense changes, which deepened this Friday after Sun Dreams announced that its main partner, the South African Sun International, will leave the country and sell the 65% it owns in the Chilean society to the Fischer family, which will pay US $ 160 million and will keep 100% of the casino operator that, in addition to Chile, has assets in countries such as Panama, Argentina and Peru.

Sun International entered Chile and was awarded one of the two licenses offered in the O’Higgins Region, in the 2006 license bid, where they participated in an alliance with IGGR and Novomatic, although in 2007 they sold their share. There he built Sun Monticello, the largest gaming casino in the country and one of the largest in South America, whose proximity to Santiago made it the venue that generates the highest income in the country.

In 2016, Sun decided to merge its operations in the region with those of Dreams, of the Fischer family, giving way to a giant that made the weight of Enjoy, competing for the first place in the local market. In the municipal casino tender, in 2017, it presented an offer for the license of Viña del Mar, Enjoy’s largest operation, which was not only able to maintain it but also take away the license of Puerto Varas.

Subsequently, Sun Dreams negotiated to merge with Marina del Sol, which if it had worked, would have easily given it the leadership.

Sun’s announcement to leave Chile comes at a critical moment for the sector, after the regulator began the license renewal process. The Association of Casinos accuses that the government changed the rules and did not respect the original sense of the process, which gave priority to the current operators to be awarded the renovations.

This was addressed by Sun International in an essential fact sent to the South African regulator, where he explained the reasons for his departure, where he also alludes to the health situation and the effects it has.

“The Covid -19 pandemic has had a great impact on the group’s operations, both in South Africa and Latin America. Although Sun Dreams has an attractive portfolio of assets and a number of growth opportunities, at the same time it is facing several challenges, including the need to renew its casino licenses. Added to this are Chile’s social policies and reforms and the need to secure financing for its Iquique project, ”the document states.

In addition, he reviews an unknown fact: an arbitration in which they were faced with the Fischer family itself to resolve issues of society.