Colombia's gambling regulator using artificial intelligence to control revenue collection, fight illegality

Coljuegos, the regulator of games of chance in Colombia, inaugurated the Artificial Intelligence Center (CIAC), a tool that will allow monitoring of the activity of illegal online betting, as well as to watch in real-time the transfers made by the 3,656 localized gaming establishments authorized by the entity.

The installation of this CIAC is part of the technological modernization process of the regulator, as explained by Coljuegos. The launching was attended by representatives of the 16 online gambling operators authorized in the country. 

"We are inaugurating the first stage of this technological project that seeks to strengthen the surveillance for localized games and to combat illegal betting websites. With this, we continue with our purpose of bringing the entity to the 21st century," said Marco Emilio Hincapié, President of Coljuegos.

The CIAC has an intelligent platform for the administration and control of games of chance, through which it is possible to identify the data transmission process of the 107,150 electronic slot machines and 16,645 bingo chairs that operate legally in the country. 

Marco Emilio Hincapié

This allows Coljuegos to know in real-time exactly how much each of the authorized gaming elements is transferred.

It also has a control board for illegality on the Internet, which was developed with the support of Kiggu, a company specializing in cybersecurity. This tool makes it possible to identify illicit pages on the web, deep web, and darknet, as well as to protect the brand of the 16 authorized online gambling operators against possible cases of duplicity of their portals.

This dashboard also allows tracking of social network profiles that operate illegal raffles and promote unauthorized gambling sites. In addition, reports of possible cyber-attacks against legal gambling sites are obtained there.

"With this tool, we will be able to increase our capacity to fight illegality on the Internet. In the last year, we have already issued 5,112 blocking orders to unauthorized gambling sites, and we expect to increase this number in the coming days," said Hincapié.

On the other hand, CIAC has a third board that is in charge of monitoring the technological infrastructure of Coljuegos, which allows the entity to maintain an optimum performance level of systems such as SICOL, Operator's Portal, Electronic Mail, Document Management, servers, network stabilization and other services that guarantee the correct operation of the entity.

Finally, the fourth dashboard focuses on the detailed follow-up of the procedures carried out by the localized gaming operators. This will allow, in the short term, to continue reducing response times for requests for new contracts and renewals.

The head of Coljuegos added that in the next months, the second phase of the Artificial Intelligence Center will be implemented, which will include real-time monitoring tools for online betting and territorial games. 

“All this will allow us to be at the forefront and guarantee the protection of resources for the health of Colombians,” Hincapié concluded.