Uruguay’s casino sector pushes for online gambling regulation, with licenses limited to land-based operators

The debate over online gambling regulation has picked up again in Uruguay. The country’s casino operators are now pushing a model that would keep licenses in the hands of companies already authorized to run physical casinos, which is the part that matters for PSPs: it tells you who, in this market, wants to sit inside the regulated perimeter and who does not.

1. The proposal comes from the Cámara Uruguaya de Operadores y Arrendadores de Servicios de Casinos y Salas de Esparcimiento (Cuoasec), which has already presented it to the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) and to political leaders from different parties. It has not yet formally reached Parliament.
2. Cuoasec says the initiative is a response to the sustained growth of digital gambling and the absence of a specific legal framework that covers it end to end. Luis Gama, Cuoasec’s executive secretary, described the situation as a “collective silence” and said: “The illegality is monstrous, there is no control. Young people are not doing well with online gambling.”
3. The draft keeps the general rule that gambling is illegal in Uruguay, while allowing the state to authorize it only exceptionally, through direct management, concessions, or tenders. The practical point is that only companies already licensed for land-based casinos in Uruguay would be able to get online gambling licenses, which Cuoasec says would make it easier to identify the operator behind each platform and keep it under regulatory control.
4. The proposal also includes self-exclusion tools, age-gating measures to block minors, and transparency obligations toward users. In addition, all authorized operators in Uruguay would have to identify themselves exclusively under the bet.uy domain, and the plan creates a fund for the prevention and treatment of gambling addiction, financed from revenue generated by the activity itself.
5. For the draft, Cuoasec drew on member companies that already operate online in other countries in the region, as well as foreign laws and earlier bills that did not move forward in the Uruguayan Parliament. Gama said there have already been contacts with Fernando Pereira, president of the Frente Amplio; Guido Manini Ríos, leader of Cabildo Abierto; Pablo Mieres, a representative of Partido Independiente; and a senator from the Color...