Mahoe drops Izizzi - New lottery challenges SVL’s share of multibillion-dollar industry

New betting and gaming entrant Mahoe Gaming Enterprises has been given the green light to operate, a development bound to challenge Supreme Ventures Limited’s (SVL) monopoly on the multibillion-dollar industry.

Mahoe Gaming was given the go-ahead by the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Commission on February 3, The Gleaner has confirmed.

“Please be guided by conditions to the licence signed on August 24, 2020,” read a section of the approval letter written by BGLC Executive Director Vitus Evans and sent to Christopher Caldwell, president and chief executive officer of Mahoe Gaming Enterprises.

Mahoe Gaming had to establish financial security as a condition to be given the nod by the regulators.

Mahoe Gaming, The Gleaner understands, will be operating Izizzi Games and will officially commence operations today.

So far, Mahoe Gaming has rounded up 285 retailers with more than 800 applications being received to become retailers.

Board members of Mahoe Gaming were locked in a meeting Thursday night ahead of today’s start of operations.

However, they say the new lottery is expected to provide new employment in Jamaica.

“With our business model, everybody wins. We are offering new and exciting options to players, supporting social-enhancement programmes, and providing revenue to the Government with our products,” Mahoe Chairman Michelle Myers Mayne said in a statement to The Gleaner.

It’s a pushback of sorts to criticisms from executive chairman of the Supreme Ventures Group, Gary Peart, who has warned that the new entrant’s foray could see tanking revenues for the Government in a competitive environment.

SVL has argued that a single lottery was the most viable model.

Mahoe Gaming also said that its games will be safe.

Former United States ambassador to Jamaica, Donald Tapia, had raised national-security concerns.

Tapia had claimed that Genlot works closely with Huawei, and, as a Chinese company, would be subject to the intrusive laws of the Chinese Communist Party.

However, it appears that Genlot cleared the bar of a multijurisdictional due-diligence investigation.

Izizzi Lottery will have six daily draws; one-, three-, and four-ball games; a once-daily lotto; and an all-day game played every four minutes.