With a new entrant now advanced with plans to enter Jamaica’s gaming business, lead entity Supreme Ventures Ltd has said that it is ready for the competition.

Xesus Johnston, chief executive officer of Supreme Ventures’ leading money earning subsidiary, Prime Sports Jamaica Ltd, has told the Jamaica Observer that whenever the new competition enters the market, the organisation that he represents will be well prepared.

“Yes, there are some new entrants coming into the numbers area of the market, we are prepared. I wish them all the best. I do think what will come out on top is the quality of the game, the service to the customers and the distribution,” Johnston said in a midweek interview last week.

Mahoe Gaming has been granted a licence by the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Commission (BGLC) to operate another lottery game in Jamaica, the start-up of which may be determined by a due diligence exercise on technology partner, Chinese firm Genlot, being conducted by two United States-based companies.

The BGLC had said initially that it expected the exercise to be completed by end of October this year, but it has not been completed and according to former BGLC Managing Director Jack Shirley, there can be no timeline as to when it will be finished.

In any event, should Genlot not pass the due diligence test, another service provider may be nominated by Mahoe Gaming to conduct the usually costly exercise.

But whatever the outcome, Johnston said that Supreme Ventures was well prepared for the shoulder-to-shoulder encounter.

“Supreme Ventures is accustomed to having competition, and what people don’t know is that in at least five of our product lines we have competition — Off Track Betting, sports betting … we have competition, and last year we were about number two or three in the market. This year, we are going to be number one.

“Lounges like Acroprolis … we have competition, with over 20 lounges out there in the market. Regarding Route VLTs (Video Lottery Terminals)… there are about 23 registered Route VLT operators with the BGLC; in terms of top ups involving Digicel and FLOW, there are between seven to nine competitors in the market selling top ups and we are number one. So I want to clear the air to say we are accustomed to competition, we are capable of managing competition and right now out of our six major product lines, five of them we have faced major competition for at least the last eight years,” stated Johnston, citing also the impact of competition against illegal operators, who often have a higher payout than Supreme Ventures.

“We have our distribution, we are ready for them, but most importantly, in our DNA was already built in, learning to compete and to grow in a market. Yes, everybody focuses on Cash Pot, but there are five other product lines that we have consistently had competition in and in some of those we have jumped in the last year to either number one or number two. We are ready,” Johnston declared.