Chile proposal would impose up to 15 years in prison for people involved in operating, financing, or promoting illegal gambling operators

Chile is considering a proposal that would add prison terms of up to 15 years for anyone involved in running, funding, or promoting illegal gambling operators. For PSPs, the point is simple: when a jurisdiction starts tying criminal exposure to the ecosystem around unlicensed gambling, payment flow risk stops being an abstract compliance issue.

1. The proposal covers three parts of the illegal gambling chain: managing the operation, financing it, and promoting it. That wording matters for payment companies because it reaches beyond the operator itself and into the commercial infrastructure around it.
2. The maximum penalty mentioned in the source is up to 15 years in prison. For PSPs and acquirers, that is the kind of threshold that tends to change how counterparties, merchants, and local partners think about onboarding and ongoing monitoring.
3. The source does not give the bill number, the legislative stage, or any implementation date. So the only safe reading is that this is a proposal, not yet a final rule, but it is still a clear signal about where Chile’s enforcement posture could be heading.