Virtgame.com announced details today for its planned excursion into providing online instant lottery games based in Argentina. The product of the company's recent agreement with the province of Chaco will be "OfficialGames.com" (a.k.a. JuegosOficiales.com), the first official, government-endorsed website for online instant lottery games in Argentina.
The new site will serve as a hub for state online instant lotteries in the country. The OfficialGames.com deal is an expansion of the initial agreement with Chaco signed over a month ago. Chaco and Virtgame.com now have a partnership in which Virtgame.com will license its technology, design and create new gaming products and manage the e-commerce portion of the online lottery site. The
Argentine State Lotteries will use Virtgame.com's technology exclusively to create its own gaming products to be made available through the site.
"We have long considered Latin America and Argentina, in particular, an important market for Virtgame.com with tremendous potential, with Internet use on the rise and a fast-growing online marketplace," said Joseph Paravia, President and CEO of Virtgame.com. "Through this expanded agreement, Virtgame.com and the State of Chaco will be at the forefront of technology, offering one of the premier online lottery sites available in Latin America and the World."
Launch of the site is expected in the first quarter of 2000. As part of the agreement, Virtgame.com will partner with the State of Chaco and the other participating states to co-manage the marketing and advertising for the site and will share in the revenue. The State of Chaco has agreed to secure licensing and
distribution agreements with up to seven other Argentine state lotteries to use the OfficialGames.com portal.
According to lottery regulators in Argentina, state lotteries and games-of-chance generate $2.2 billion in sales a year in their country. In the State of Chaco alone, automated lotteries generate an estimated $178 million dollars in sales.
State gaming officials will be using revenues generated from OfficialGames.com for social welfare funding for low-income families.