Colombia has issued its 12th online gambling license to local firm Royal Betting Solutions SAS.

On Monday, Colombian gambling regulator Coljuegos announced that Royal Betting Solutions had received permission to launch online operations via its Apuestalo.co domain. Royal Betting, a venture of local construction, commerce and services entrepreneurs, has signed on for an initial three-year term.

Coljuegos boss Juan Pérez Hidalgo used the new license announcement to provide an update on the regulated market’s performance to date. Since the market’s first licensee launched in July 2017, Hidalgo said Colombian punters had wagered a total of COP500b (US$170m), while Coljuegos had collected COP15b in fees from its licensees.

Around 870k Colombian punters had registered with locally licensed sites as of May, a 35% increase from April’s total, reflecting both the rising number of approved gambling sites plus anticipation of June’s kickoff of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. About 85% of these bettors are men and the vast majority of bettors are under 40 years of age. Around 97% of player deposits are made in cash although the average deposit totaled a mere COP20k ($7).