Chile expands DNS blocking against unauthorized online betting platforms

Chile’s Supreme Court upheld a petition filed by Lotería de Concepción, and the Santiago Court of Appeals set DNS blocking as the enforcement method. For PSPs and operators, the important part is not the headline itself but the process: the country is now running a repeatable workflow for identifying, validating, and taking down new domains tied to unauthorized betting sites.

1. The court chose DNS blocking because it targets each site individually and reduces the risk of accidentally affecting legitimate services. The procedure also includes correction mechanisms if a block ends up hitting a legal site operating in Chile.
2. The process starts when Lotería de Concepción, or a third party working with it, notifies the Superintendence of Casinos of Game (SCJ) about domains, subdomains, or “mirror” sites that replicate betting platforms. The SCJ then reviews the evidence and validates whether those domains are actually online betting or gambling sites.
3. In this round, the SCJ confirmed a list of 37 new domains to be added to Chile’s existing blocklist. Once validated, the list is sent by Subtel to the telecom companies operating in Chile: Entel, Movistar, Claro, GTD, WOM, and VTR.
4. Those six companies have a maximum of 48 hours from notification to block the sites using the domain name system (DNS). Each operator must also prove to the Santiago Court of Appeals and to Subtel the exact date and time when the block was implemented.
5. The court ordered the same procedure to be repeated whenever new domains, subdomains, or mirror sites linked to the same betting platforms appear. In practice, that creates an ongoing enforcement cycle, which matters because these sites often change addresses to get around blocks.