BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Apr. 27, 2023 

The 10:00 a.m. draw for the Sunday lottery on April 30 will be the last time that Brads Gaming Group Ltd. (BGGL) will be administering any Government lottery. The question now is how soon sales and draws will resume, as word to Amandala is that it will take a few weeks. Prime Minister John Briceño today told the newspaper they will consult their attorneys before providing comment, citing a potential lawsuit from Brads. On Wednesday, April 26, the Government made the bombshell announcement that the Lotteries Committee, at a meeting on April 20, decided to revoke the exclusive licence held by BGGL to administer the Government Lotteries. These include the Boledo, Jackpot Lottery and Ordinary Lottery. In Wednesday’s press release, it was stated simply, “The government will, in the near future, make alternative arrangements for the administration of the Government Lotteries while maintaining a standard that will guarantee that consumer rights are not violated.”

When the Barrow administration privatized the management of the Government Lotteries beginning on April 1, 2010, the contract was awarded to Brads Gaming Company Ltd. (BGCL). At the time, the Government cited the objectives for privatization as maximizing financial returns and improving efficiency of the Lotteries regime. The Government reported that collections from the sale of lottery books and license approvals totalled an estimated $0.9 million annually. In December 2019, when the first 10-year contract was coming to an end, the Barrow administration issued a tender for the administration of the distribution, sale and marketing of lottery tickets. The report was that there were three applicants. After the revision process, BGGL was awarded the administration contract for the next 10 years.

In its announcement this week, the Briceño administration said the license revocation was due to “material and substantial breaches of the conditions of the exclusive license, and the Lotteries Act and its regulations.” On December 23, 2022, the Lotteries Committee wrote Brads a 5-page letter outlining a laundry list of alleged breaches of the terms of its exclusive license and relevant laws and requested that the company explain why the Committee should not revoke its license.

In an AMANDALA article, “Lotteries Committee goes after Brads”, dated Thursday, January 5, 2023, those alleged breaches were outlined in detail. According to the article, the letter listed “twelve ways in which Brads, in its yearly operations, did not meet the terms stipulated in the contracts and it set January 16, 2023 as the deadline for Brads to submit a response to the points of contention laid out in the 5-page document.” Among those points of contention was the assertion that the company, according to the article, had not sold and used tickets “in the form prescribed by the Lotteries Committee” and that a mark which was to have been lodged with the Lotteries Committee was not present on the tickets. The letter, according to the AMANDALA report, “also pointed to failure of the company to develop a system, in coordination with the Income Tax Department and the Lotteries Committee, for the collection, recording and reporting of sales data, as is mandated” and noted that there was no indication that the company had “even been making any effort to compile, record and verify accurate sales data.” The Lotteries Committee further noted in the letter that Brads had not attempted to reach out to consult with the two listed agencies on the creation of the system, and it also drew attention to lapses in the company’s financial reporting. According to Garcia, some of the reports outlining revenues and how the government’s share of the profits was calculated were either late or incomplete. (According to the January 5 AMANDALA article, the report from the company was to have included “data on sales, commissions paid to agents, and the company’s expenses.”) Garcia additionally asserted that there was no evidence that the company contracted the services of an independent lottery expert, nor did the company facilitate electronic purchase of the lottery by customers.

Attorney for BGGL, Dean Barrow, S.C. submitted to the committee what was purported to be a refutation of each claim and Barrow further claimed that wherever there was an omission, it was not so substantial as to warrant revocation because the omissions did not amount to a breach of the company’s license. He also argued that BGGL was not being allowed due process, as no opportunity was provided for the company to remedy the alleged breaches. Barrow pointed out that revocation was a last resort that should not be “summarily imposed” because to do so would be contrary to fair play and good commercial practice.

That response letter was followed up by another communication from Barrow and Williams acting on behalf of Countach Technologies Ltd., a Cayman Islands company which is said to have acquired shares in BGGL over the last few years. Countach made the claim that the holder of the current license is not the same as Brads Gaming Company Ltd. but that the Briceño administration was conflating the two and was using “the supposed non-compliance of the previous licensee to threaten the current licensee.” It ultimately reminded the government that the Cayman Islands is a British Overseas Territory and Countach is covered under the Bilateral Investment Treaty between the Government of the UK and the Government of Belize (the very treaty that Lord Ashcroft has cited as the basis for suing the government due to the Department of Environment’s refusal to grant approval to his Waterloo cruise port project.) At that time, Countach said the revocation of Brad’s license and agreement would constitute wrongful interference and they would invoke the Treaty.

After this week’s announcement, Senior Counsel Barrow told Amandala that Kim Chee, the Managing Director of Brads, does not agree that the Government had proper justification for the revocation of the license and will therefore seek compensation for the remaining 7 years on the contract (ending March 31, 2030). The intention is to seek a court declaration that the revocation is unlawful. However, Barrow clarified that Brads will not seek the restoration of the license because the Government is within its rights to revoke the license since the lotteries belong to the Government. Barrow stated, “it [the Government] gave the license under a contract and it gave the license for a period of years. Government is free to take it away, but, of course, if it took it away wrongly, then it must compensate the licensee for the years that the licensee would have lost.”

Barrow’s opinion is that this was the intention of the Briceño administration all along. He declared, “This is the end of the Brads license. Kim Chee would not even want the license to be restored. Clearly, it would be impossible to work with this Government and this Lotteries Committee … He’s reached the end of the road. Government was determined from the start to get rid of it.” When the Government Lotteries was privatized in 2010, the Barrow administration said Government would collect $2 million annually for the license and would benefit from a profit-sharing arrangement and business tax. However, while in opposition, Briceño called the arrangement a “sweetheart deal” and when his party came into office, they sought to collect a lotteries tax of 12.5%, which would require undoing an exemption granted by the Barrow administration that, according to the current government, has been yielding the company about $5 million annually. That matter is still in court, as the company sought to block the lifting of the exemption.

Today, the Government issued a notice to all agents of Government Lotteries indicating that as of May 2nd, they are prohibited from selling and promoting Government Lotteries and anyone caught doing so thereafter without a valid license will be prosecuted. The notice states, “The public will be advised when the Government Lotteries will resume normal activity.”

In an interview today, when asked what happens next week with Boledo, the Prime Minister stated, “Obviously, during the pandemic when they were not selling Boledo for a few weeks, nobody lost their life. So, we want to ensure that whatever is done, it can be done properly, and in a way that our citizens can benefit from it.”