Montevideo will hand over control of its only municipal casino to Uruguay's National Government this week, ending an arrangement the city said had cost more than $2m a year.
The Casino Parque Hotel will close its doors on Friday and pass into the hands of the Dirección General de Casinos, the national gaming authority under the Ministry of Economy and Finance according to Mayor Mario Bergara.
From September the venue will be leased by the national government for two years, which will also purchase the gaming machines currently in operation.
Bergara said: "We are following through on something we proposed during the campaign: the transfer of the municipal casino to the state institution responsible for managing casinos and gambling policy."
The mayor said the transfer would allow the city to stop absorbing the casino's deficit, and that the municipality would be free of that shortfall by the end of 2027. The casino recorded a loss of UYU 83m ($2.1m) in 2024.
Of the 46 municipal employees who worked at the casino, 35 will take early retirement under an incentive scheme funded by the budgeted deficit, while the remaining 11 will be reassigned to other roles within the Intendencia de Montevideo, according to Bergara.
Bergara added: "Our view is that managing a casino is not among the IMM's purposes, nor is having a gambling policy."
The transfer was a proposal Bergara made during his 2025 campaign for mayor, when he suggested Casino Parque Hotel move under the same national authority that manages every other casino in the country. After taking office he said he would open a dialogue process with the goal of eventually moving the venue out of municipal hands, a process he described as having been agreed upon with staff.
The casino recorded a loss of UYU 83m in 2024, part of a longer-running financial decline that had fueled calls for its closure.
