Key Points
- Under Resolution 69 of June 2, 2026, 39 betting platforms registered for Digital VAT with Chile’s SII, while Subtel blocked 42 URLs on September 1 and 37 new domains on September 21, with some brands appearing across both lists.
- Boletín 14838-03 entered Chile’s Chamber of Deputies on March 7, 2022, cleared the Senate at the general stage in August 2025, and sits in its second constitutional stage with the committee indications deadline set for October 16, 2026.
- Agrupación de iGaming Responsable president Sandra Kemp warns that VAT registration creates no self-exclusion register, no age verification, and no deposit limits, calling self-regulation “a bridge, not a destination.”
Chile’s tax authority has registered offshore betting operators for Digital VAT. Subtel, Chile’s telecoms regulator, is ordering those same operators’ websites blocked. Both policies are running this September, and senators who reviewed both sets of data in the same chamber are not calling it a coordination failure. They are calling it a gap in the law.
Resolution 69 of June 2, 2026 requires foreign betting and casino platforms in Chile to register under the SII’s simplified VAT regime. The 19% rate applies to the consideration received from Chilean users, with prize deductions permitted where operators can properly substantiate the amounts paid. By September 8, 39 betting platforms had completed that registration. The regime collects quarterly; the first payment was not expected until October. None of that registration grants any form of operating licence. Each platform becomes a recognised tax subject in the SII’s records, and nothing more comes with that status.
Subtel is operating from an entirely different legal instruction. A Supreme Court ruling on unauthorised online betting directed specified blocking measures against named sites, and acting on that ruling, Subtel blocked 42 URLs on September 1. On September 21, it added 37 new domains, including subdomains and mirror sites, to that list. Some brands in those blocking orders are understood to be among those registered with the SII for VAT. Official records do not confirm that all 39 registered platforms appear on either block list.
The State Has Liability Records, But Players Have No Protections
Sandra Kemp, president of the newly formed Agrupación de iGaming Responsable, was precise when speaking to NEXT.io. “Collecting tax is not regulation,” she said. Operators intend to comply with SII requirements, but VAT registration cannot verify the age of users creating accounts. It creates no national self-exclusion register. No mechanism within the regime can enforce deposit limits or compel operators to report suspicious financial activity to the Financial Analysis Unit.
“Ultimately, the state is applying a patch when we need a law,” Kemp said.
Senators at the Economy Commission encountered this inconsistency directly, reviewing the SII’s registration data alongside Subtel’s block lists in the same session. Both agencies are functioning correctly within their own existing mandates. No governing law has given them coherent instructions over the same market. That is precisely what senators identified as the structural problem.
A Bill That Entered Chile’s Chamber in March 2022
The bill, named Boletín 14838-03, was proposed to the Chilean Chamber of Deputies on March 7, 2022. The Senate passed it in general form in August 2025 by 27 votes, three votes against, and five abstentions. The bill is currently in its second constitutional stage in the Senate.
Under the current framework, licensed operators would pay a 20% specific tax on gross gaming revenue alongside existing VAT. A 1% contribution would go toward responsible gambling programmes. A 2% levy on gross sports betting revenue would fund the National Sports Institute.
One provision has attracted sustained pushback from existing market participants. Platforms that operated before regulation would face a cooling-off period of up to one year before applying for a licence. They would also carry retroactive tax obligations covering up to 36 months of prior activity. For operators who have invested significantly in the Chilean market, those two conditions together represent a serious commercial consideration.
In June 2026, a working group on the bill was created by the Economy Committee with the involvement of the government in order to reach an agreement about the controversial aspects of the bill. According to the committee chairperson, Senator Gastón Saavedra, regulation is urgent, and he is eager to pass the legislation. The deadline for formal consultations is October 16, 2026.
Chile Has Fallen Behind Its Own Region
“Chile is late to the debate, and to promoting foreign investment,” Kemp said. She pointed to Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Argentina as markets that have each built functioning regulatory frameworks.
The volume of unregulated activity gives that observation real weight. Figures presented to the Senate show that more than five million Chileans interacted with betting platforms in 2024. Those platforms billed more than US$3.1 billion that year. “The current legal vacuum creates risks and harm for minors, adult users, the state and platforms that are unable to operate and compete on equal terms in Chile,” Kemp said. “Failing to legislate is the worst of all the available options.”
The Agrupación has proposed mandatory periodic reporting on channelisation rates and problem gambling prevalence in any new law, with rules adjusted as that data builds. Kemp described the preferred approach as risk-based and outcomes-focused. Restrictions so rigid they price the legal market out of competition with grey-market operators, she said, serve no one’s interests.
Football Governance Offers Chile an Uncomfortable Mirror
Kemp became the new president of Agrupación in July 2026, and her experience is based on working with sports organisations. From 2021 to 2023, Kemp worked as an executive secretary in the National Professional Football Association in Chile. She became the first woman to receive such a position. Comparing gambling regulation with football management is an intentional step. “In the football context, it took a long time from the moment when football turned into a mass movement until the time when professionalisation of governance occurred, and this cost was paid for many years,” she explained.
Every player protection measure the Agrupación currently runs rests on voluntary commitments alone. No Chilean law places any formal obligation behind those commitments. “Everything we do today through the Agrupación is based on voluntary commitments, but it should be a legal obligation for everyone,” Kemp said. “Self-regulation is a bridge, not a destination.”
Expert Analysis: Chile Designed This Contradiction – It Did Not Stumble Into It
We do not read Chile’s current situation as two agencies failing to coordinate. The VAT regime and the blocking orders are both functioning exactly as designed. What they reveal together is something more deliberate than a planning gap. The state chose to extract revenue from an unlicensed market. Separately, blocking orders satisfied the court without requiring a licensing decision. Neither action addressed what happens to Chilean players in between.
Our concern is that this two-track design is self-reinforcing. Thirty-nine platforms now carry formal VAT liabilities, with the first quarterly payment approaching in October. That creates a fiscal constituency inside the Senate for preserving the current arrangement. A comprehensive licensing framework will inevitably restrict access for some operators currently in that VAT register, and that makes a complete regulatory law harder to advance with each quarter that passes. Kemp’s phrase cuts in both directions here. “Self-regulation is a bridge, not a destination” applies as sharply to the state’s interim policy as it does to the industry’s voluntary commitments. The question worth asking is whether either bridge is actually pointed toward the same place.
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