Registration for slot machines, open until today

Next Wednesday, the Ministry of Labor Relations will carry out the international public auction of 8,171 slot machines seized from the country's gaming halls, which until three months ago operated through legal protections and not through the current Tourism Law.

According to the Ministry, the sale will take place in the auditorium of the Superintendence of Companies of Guayaquil, starting at 10:00.

The machines are valued at $5.3 million and that money will be used to pay the settlements to the former workers of arcades and mechanical bingo halls that stopped working after the popular consultation in which the prohibition of this type of establishment was approved; To guarantee these payments, the regime proceeded to confiscate the equipment.

The Ministry of Labor Relations published on its website www.mrl.gob.ec the bases of the auction and the requirements to participate in the process. In addition to the formation of the auction committee, which is made up of a delegate from that State portfolio, who will chair it, and the liquidators of the gambling companies appointed by the Superintendency of Companies.

Those interested in participating in the contest have until today to submit the documents for registration. The call was made last Monday in the newspapers El Telégrafo and El Comercio.

Among the documents for registration, a copy of the appointment of the legal representative is required, duly apostilled and the certificate of legal existence of the company issued by the Consulate of Ecuador in the country of origin of the company; a certified or management check for the consignment of 10% of the value of the lots that you wish to acquire in the name of the company that owns the machines.

They must also attach a sworn statement indicating that the funds used for the purchase of the goods come from legal activities.

The 8,171 slot machines are divided into thirteen lots valued from $450 to $2,460,849, reported the Department of Communication of the Ministry.

The definitive closure of the game rooms in the country began on September 16, when Executive Decree 873 was published in the Official Registry, which determined the immediate cessation of the premises.

While the casinos that operate in luxury and first category hotels with permission from the Ministry of Tourism have until next March to comply with the liquidation of their personnel and the economic obligations acquired before the popular consultation on May 7.

Some 3,200 people work in the 32 legally constituted casinos in Ecuador. The law authorizes its operation only in five-star hotels, according to the Casino and Bingo Association, which had proposed to the Executive that it be granted up to five years of grace to recover investments estimated at $180 million.

Process: Close of business80 Arcades are closed. 5,000 people worked there.

32Casinos will have until March 2012 to close and liquidate their workers.

Buyers have 20 days to take the machines out of the country after the auction.