Colombian Casinos Closed Due to Strict Confinement Measures

The Colombian administration has enforced stringent confinement measures throughout the country to combat the upsurge in Covid-19 cases.

Home > Casinos & Gaming > Colombian Casinos Closed Due to Strict Confinement Measures

Colombia’s land-based gambling sector has been entirely shut down due to stringent confinement measures.

After closing in March 2020, casinos and gaming venues across Colombia remained closed for the majority of 2020 before being permitted to reopen, subject to local government authorization.

Medellin was the first city in the nation to reopen its casinos in September after the city reduced its alert level from orange to yellow due to low infection fatality rates, with fewer deaths per capita than other cities.

Local authorities were granted the power to open, provided they adhered to safety protocols established by the Colombian Ministry of Health, including the use of physical barriers between gaming machines, the prohibition of food and alcohol sales, and regular disinfection of machines.

The government began re-enforcing confinement measures on December 31st, including a ban on the sale of alcoholic beverages and restrictions on gatherings in public spaces in the capital, Bogota.

Beginning on the fifth of January and continuing until the seventeenth, the city enforced a complete shutdown from eight in the evening until five in the morning. During this period, the sale of alcoholic beverages was prohibited on weekends, and only one individual from each residence was permitted to venture out for essential items.

In Bogota and other regions, these confinement measures are anticipated to remain in effect until at least the twenty-eighth of January, with only a strictly limited set of activities permitted.

Certain regions, such as Santa Marta, anticipate that curfew restrictions will persist until at least the first of March.

In some locations, authorized activities are contingent upon the final digit of each citizen’s identification number. To isolate the populace, only individuals with a specific final digit on their identification document are allowed to leave their homes on a particular day.

For instance, between the eighth and sixteenth of January, inhabitants of Santander were only permitted to leave their homes on Monday if their identification number terminated in five or six, while other residents were allowed to venture out on other days of the week.

Sign up for the iGaming news newsletter.