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Photo: Ms. Nalda Garcia, Chief Executive Officer, Office of the Prime Minister
Belize City, Monday, August 26, 2024
This morning, Monday, August 26, Ms. Narda Garcia, Chief Executive Officer of the Office of the Prime Minister, and Ms. Janel Espat, Managing Director of the Belize Government Lotteries Limited (BGLL), appeared on the Love FM Morning Show and gave their thoughts on what the people of Belize have long awaited, namely, how the Boledo sales proceeds have fared since the government handed the company (previously licensed to a private entity) back to public management last May. Ms. Espat told the audience that she had “very good news to share” that after eight months of operating the lottery, the government had achieved sales of $72 million, and conservatively estimated that sales of $108 million and a net profit of approximately $16.5 million were expected by November 30, 2024, which would mark the one-year anniversary of the government starting to operate the lottery.
Back in May 2023, when the government took over Boledo from Caribbean Gaming Company Limited (CGCL) and Brad Gaming Group, Prime Minister Briceño told the House of Representatives that the private owners of Boledo reported extremely low sales in the 10 years after they received the contract from the government (UDP) in 2010. “Sales started out at $5.8 million, then $10 million, $9.4 million, $12.8 million, $12.3 million, $11.5 million; in 2016 it went to $10.8 million; in 2017 it went down to $5.8 million; in 2018 it went up to $16.7 million; in 2019, when it looked like they were going to renew the contract, sales went to $25.8 million,” he said. In August 2021, after the People’s United Party government came to power, Briceño said, the lottery commission wrote them (the company) their first letter asking for information, “and all of a sudden, sales went from $18.7 million to $43.3 million… In 2022 – guess what? Sales are up: $50.2 million. For 10 years, they reported $128 million in sales; now it’s $50 million a year!” Briceño said that in the two years under the People’s United Party, the private company reported sales of $125.6 million. of which the people of Belize received only $11 million in taxes and licensing fees.
CEO Garcia said that between 2010 and 2020, the government received about $2 million per year from Boledo’s private managers, and the highest sales tax received by the government coffers in a year was about $300,000. She explained that it took the government a full six months to restart the game after taking it over because they were starting from scratch and had to do a lot of fine-tuning. CEO Garcia said she sees opportunities for the country to earn more revenue from the game and hinted that the government may expand into other games.
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