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Casino board members suspected of shady ties to former president

la prensa

Enrique Pretelt

Since its inception, Lucky Games has had much luck in the country's gaming industry.

On December 12, 1996, then President Ernesto Pérez Balladares granted the company a license to operate 500 type-B slot machines. Interestingly, one of his close friends and erstwhile Housing Minister Roosevelt Lito Thayer held a top position on the board. Up until that moment, only the government could operate casinos and the multimillion dollar profits went directly into public coffers.

In fact, the contract was awarded to Lucky Games just months after President Pérez Balladares announced the privatization of the sector in exchange for stringent transparency requirements.

The Executive Branch entertained the idea of turning the country into the region's Mecca of the games and leisure activities, replete with casinos, bingo halls, slot machine halls and horse tracks. In other words, a tropical version of Las Vegas.

Lucky Games, given the official blessing, was to cash in on that dream.

To regulate the industry, a new law was passed in February 1998. A clause in that law allowed the grandfathering in of contracts awarded before the privatization and permitted them the option of remaining in operation for 20 years. Additionally, operators of type-B slot machines were automatically given the right to run type-A machines, which have the advantage of legally receiving unlimited bets and therefore generate much more in profits.

la prensa

Roosevelt Thayer

Working against the clock, the Cabinet Council approved the new agreement on June 16, 1999. The resolution was signed by all ministers, including Housing Minister, who was none other than Lucky Games owner Roosevelt Thayer.

Finally, on Aug. 23 of that year, just a week before the end of his term, President Pérez Balladares completed the legal process in favor of Lucky Games the same day that the Board of Control of Game approved the contract and awarded Lucky Games the operation of 500 type-A slot machines, which would be divided among nine locations (six in the capital and three in the interior provinces).

Transparency laws allowed this newspaper access to Lucky Games' full file that is kept in the official archive of the Gaming Control Board. Boxes and boxes of information reveal   over a decade of the company's operations in Panama. In the file was evidence that Lucky Games was exempted from paying a penny to the state for the contract. Moreover, the government agreed to allow the company to pay a tax of just 10% of its gross income, while other companies that entered the bidding process had to spend millions to win the right to operate in the country.

Finally, thanks to licenses from the Partido Revolucionario Democrático (PRD)  government, Lucky Games turned neon lights at their casinos and game rooms in neighborhoods across the capital, from Los Pueblos to Santa Ana, Bethania and Calidonia. Others went up on less traveled paths, like La Chorrera, San Miguelito and in the provincial capitals of Chiriquí, Coclé and Veraguas. 

Last year, Thayer spoke with this newspaper about the company after his name appeared in the Public Registry as the vice president of Lucky Games. First, he denied any link to the company. Then, when presented documents showing him as a member of the directive board, he indicated that he didn't recall being on it. He did, however, admit that former President Pérez Balladares is like a brother to him.

At the turn of the 21st century, there was only one company in the gaming industry that eclipsed Lucky Games' profits. It was Gaming & Services of Panama, which had won the public tender in 1997 to operate 14 game rooms in exchange for payment $20 million.

That competition, however, was short-lived. Once Lucky Games signed a contract with the state in 1999, official documents indicate that it fell under the administration of the rival company's owners: Panama CIRSA, the local subsidiary of a Spanish multinational group. From that moment on, business at the gambling venues increased hand over fist.

In 1999, Lucky Games reported a gross income of $ 10 million. By 2001,that figure grew to $80 million. And profits have remained stable since then, with Panamanians and tourists helping to expand revenues to about $100 million last year, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

On May 5, 2008, files at the Public Registry show that two old friends of then president were admitted to the board, Thayer (who assumed the role of vice president) and Enrique Pretelt (secretary). Behind the title changes was a commercial operation. When Gaming & Services of Panama (Panama CIRSA) merged with Lucky Games, the Spanish shareholders bought all of the company's shares. At that moment, they also awarded Lucky Games' board 106 shares of Gaming & Services, and Thayer and Pretelt joined the board of that company as well.
  
At the Board of Control Game no information on how the two friends ended up in the former directory of the merged companies, if one considers that Gaiming & Services of Panama was controlled by the Spanish CIRSA Panama and all actions Lucky Games in the hands a third party. Questions linger over the true ownership of Lucky Games, with some believing that Pretelt and Thayer hide their authority behind that third party figure.

Pretelt has never made himself to available to La Prensa. And Thayer continues to deny all ties to the company, though the car he drives is registered to Lucky Games and claims to have joined the boards of both companies as a result of a long-standing relationship with Spanish CIRSA.

Meanwhile, the current general manager of Panama CIRSA, Helios Navarro, also negates any wrongdoing on the part of Pérez Balladares, and explained that Pretelt and Thayer took the posts of vice president and secretary of the board because "both are successful entrepreneurs and are basically involved in giving their input regarding economic issues."