We offer you four questions that the president of ANESAR (SPANISH ASSOCIATION OF GAMING HALLS AND RECREATIONAL ENTERPRISES) has wanted to answer for our readers. These are key questions about the next X ANESAR Congress (now that one year has passed since the last edition); the reflections of an unforgettable year; messages to employers to continue offering high levels of professionalism and clear words for politicians and their tendency to express opinions without knowing.
Each sentence is a slab of reality, of truth, of good sense and lucidity. You have to read it, everyone, to understand the moment in which we are, ... so that you can understand the sector and the gaming industry in Spain.
JACQUELINE MECINAS.- Is the 9th ANESAR Congress postponed to be able to celebrate it in person in the first half of the year?
JOSEP VALL.- The ANESAR Congress is a consolidated event of great importance for gaming hall entrepreneurs, for the sector and for the association itself. This year the circumstances are what they are, and although there are many uncertainties, we are evaluating and analyzing the best way to do it. What is certain is that it will be done. In these circumstances, we cannot stop discussing our activity. We have many things to say and to claim and the Congress is a magnificent meeting point for debate and the sharing of ideas.
JM.- After 12 dizzying months, with unprecedented situations and facing stricter regulations, what is the balance and how should the gaming hall sector face the most immediate months?
JV.- Nobody could even imagine a year like this. The pandemic has absorbed everything, and it cannot be otherwise. The effort of the administrations and also of the companies and workers has been immeasurable. The balance is bad, very bad. The losses are very large and we will see who can survive. We are aware of the situations and we accept coherent measures, but we cannot accept measures of a more ideological nature than health measures, as we are seeing. The most immediate months should be those of the removal of closures due to the coronavirus and the maintenance of activity. Although it may sound a bit pessimistic, survival must now be one of our main objectives.
JM.- What is ANESAR's achievement in the last twelve months? Any aspect to highlight? What is your goal in 2021?
JV.- ANESAR's achievements are the achievements of gaming halls entrepreneurs. As we said, it has been a year marked by the pandemic. Despite the great difficulties, considerable investments have been made in ensuring strict compliance with sanitary measures. There is no record of a single contagion or outbreak in a gaming hall. Despite this, we are being treated unfairly in some autonomous communities. Both ANESAR and the gaming hall associations have made an immense effort to try to open as soon as possible and to keep the activity open, in which the administration recognizes the tax exemption and benefits, etc., etc.,. Other aspects to be highlighted are the growing business awareness that the highest standards of quality and social responsibility must be maintained, activities with which ANESAR has contributed significantly, and the certainty that the union and the work of all of us it is essential to achieve it.
JM.- What would you say to Spanish businessmen and what message would you give to the global gaming world given the experience in Spain?
JV.- We must continue working with the professionalism and seriousness with which it has been done. Compliance with all the conditions imposed on us and regulatory compliance is our best and only guarantee. And there are the data that support it. We cannot do anything else but continue along this line and insist and re-insist that data, and not preconceived ideologies, are what should guide the normative and regulatory actions of our activity. We must insist that our activity is necessary and make the administrations understand this, because it is the only way to protect everyone: of course those who should not play, but also those who play because they have chosen us as their form of entertainment. We are the best guarantee for them, for society and for administrations. There are forces to make this understood, and we are going to fight for it.
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