Codere Boosting Investment as Colombia Overhauls Casino Agency

Codere SA (CDR), Spain’s only publicly traded casino operator, will boost investment in Colombia this year amid a government overhaul of industry regulation, said Diego Felipe Navarro, the company’s top official in the country.

Codere will increase its investments in Colombia by as much as 40 percent to about $21 million this year as it retools marketing and plans for the May opening of the Zona T Crown Casino in Bogota, to be Colombia’s biggest, Navarro said in an interview.

“Colombia’s new regulator has an administrative structure that will seek to promote gaming,” Navarro said from his office in Bogota. “Confidence in Colombia is up.”

Colombia seeks to boost government revenue from gambling fivefold in two years to 2 trillion pesos ($1.1 billion) as it creates new agencies to promote and regulate the industry, Finance Minister Juan Carlos Echeverry said in a statement in November. Coljuegos, a state-run gaming business, will begin operating as soon as next month, according to the ministry.

To contact the reporter on this story: Blake Schmidt in Bogota at bschmidt16@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Papadopoulos at papadopoulos@bloomberg.net