Chile’s ACCJ urges online gambling regulation before applying taxes under SII Resolution No. 69

The Asociación Chilena de Casinos de Juego (ACCJ) has formally opposed Resolution No. 69 from the Servicio de Impuestos Internos (SII), telling Chile’s Senate Economy Committee that the state is trying to tax online betting while still treating it as illegal. For high-risk operators and PSPs, the practical issue is simple: tax collection without a clear licensing and compliance framework leaves a messy gap on AML, consumer protection, and who is actually allowed to operate.

1. ACCJ says the tax treatment creates a “giant contradiction”. ACCJ president Cecilia Valdés told senators that Chile is pursuing online betting as illegal activity while at the same time collecting the VAT (value-added tax) it generates. In her view, that is not a legal framework; it is an administrative workaround that does not settle the underlying status of the business.
2. Resolution No. 69 gives online bookmakers a specific tax mechanism, but not legal clarity. The SII, published the resolution in recent months and explicitly acknowledged that the competent authorities had already declared online betting unlawful. The agency said its role is limited to tax compliance and that it is not its job to decide whether the taxed activity is legal. ACCJ’s answer was blunt: legality cannot come from administrative procedure.
3. The association says more than 3.000 illegal platforms are operating in Chile without suspicious-transaction reporting duties. ACCJ cited a response from the Unidad de Análisis Financiero (UAF) saying online betting sites are not required to report suspicious transactions to the authorities. That is the core AML gap the association wants lawmakers to notice: if platforms take bets but are outside the reporting perimeter, they become a ready-made risk channel for money laundering.
4. Licensed casinos face a much tighter rulebook than online betting sites under the current setup. According to Valdés, licensed casinos in Chile are subject to AML controls, specific gaming taxes, consumer protection mechanisms, and restrictions on underage access. The point of the comparison is not subtle: regulated operators carry more compliance cost, while illegal online platforms can compete without the same duties.
5. ACCJ also argues that the tax design favors unlicensed operators over licensed ones. Under Resolution No. 69, the online platforms that are now taxed are only covered by VAT, while the regulated casino sector pays VAT plus the specific gaming taxes applied to the licensed market. That means the state collects less from illegal operators than from legal ones, even though both are competing for the same customers.

For PSPs, the signal from Chile is not just about tax policy. When a market starts taxing activity before settling licensing, AML reporting, and consumer-protection rules, payment providers are left to guess where the real line sits. That is usually where the headaches begin.