Last Thursday, November 23rd, the Government of the province of Neuquen renewed all the licenses of the electronic casinos that operate within the mentioned territory. The rooms started operating about six years ago with municipal permissions, until the Government decided to regulate and control the activity in 2004.

Then, a law was written which gave permission to all the operators that had their venues functioning by the month of December, 2003. The permission was a way of agreement which had a duration of two years and it expired last November 7th. It also stipulated that if the investment plan were followed, it would be prorogated for eight more years, which happened last Thursday.

To have access to the prorogation, the operators compromised to make hotel investments for over 44 million pesos (about U$S 14.5 million). Recently, the most important rooms were interconnected online, for a more effective control of their activities. The number of slot machines in the rooms will increase noticeably.