Santiago Court Orders Permanent Blocking Procedure for Illegal Online Betting Sites in Chile

The Santiago Court of Appeals has set a permanent procedure to block online betting and gambling sites operating without authorization in Chile. For PSPs, acquirers, and banks, the important part is not the politics of it: the court has now moved from a one-off ruling to an operational blocking framework.

1. The resolution, issued on Friday, August 7, is part of a broader legal push led by Polla Chilena de Beneficencia and Lotería de Concepción against unauthorized online gaming platforms. It is meant to advance compliance with a prior Supreme Court ruling that ordered internet providers to prevent the transmission and promotion of gambling without legal authorization.
2. The court said the technical method for enforcement will be DNS (Domain Name System) blocking. In the court’s view, DNS offers a high level of specificity and reduces the risk of collateral damage to legitimate third-party websites and services.
3. The decision relied on a report from Subtel (Subsecretaría de Telecomunicaciones), which reviewed several possible tools for restrictions, including DNS, SNI (Server Name Indication), and DPI (Deep Packet Inspection). Subtel rejected SNI and DPI as more intrusive and as carrying greater privacy, data protection, and cybersecurity risks.
4. Polla Chilena de Beneficencia president Felipe Dalgalarrando said the ruling establishes a concrete procedure to make the blocking of illegal platforms effective. He added that the company expects implementation as soon as possible and is willing to help authorities identify the sites that should be blocked.
5. The ruling also drew criticism from former Security Minister Luis Cordero, who questioned the role of the SII (Servicio de Impuestos Internos) toward online betting platforms. His point was simple enough: the court is treating these sites as illegal, while the tax authority has moved ahead with a tax framework for them, which leaves the state speaking in two different registers at once.

For high-risk payment teams, Chile is now a jurisdiction where courts have not only called out unauthorized online betting, but also specified the enforcement tool: DNS-based blocking. That matters when assessing processing exposure, merchant onboarding, and whether a local operator’s traffic can still reach users if the legal and technical squeeze keeps tightening.