The Senate Chamber from Paraguay has approved a request for the National Commission of Games of Chance of Paraguay (Conajzar) to share reports detailing where the regulator allocated the money from unclaimed prizes from 2015 to date.
Senator Abel González’s request aims to obtain statistics on unclaimed prizes, as well as where the regulator directed them and whether they were sent to charities.
According to Article 19 of Law No. 1016, which includes provisions approved by the Congress to exploit games of chance in Paraguay, the prizes must be claimed within 60 days after the draw.
If the winner doesn’t claim the prize, Conajzar must allocate that money entirely to charities, and they can’t receive it multiple times if there are other legal organizations that haven’t received those benefits.
Conajzar must comply with the Senate’s request and exercise control over the destination of the unclaimed prizes. It must also sanction the operators if they don’t comply with the law.
Different civil organizations had presented a request to President Mario Abdo Benítez to demand more transparency in Conajzar’ processes. The associations claimed that they haven’t seen economic resources from the authority “in a long time”. According to their estimations, they should’ve received more than $30 million in the past few years.
“Conajzar’s resources belong to civil organizations by law, and they allow us to continue our projects, which benefit people. These are millionaire contributions that haven’t been distributed in a long time,” said Juan Pablo Fernández, head of Fundación Libre.
