Chile formalizes DNS blocking for unauthorized online casinos

Chile has now set the mechanics for enforcing court-ordered blocking against online casinos operating without authorization. For PSPs and telecoms, the key point is that the country is moving from a broad order to a named-domain process, with the Superintendence of Casinos of Gambling (SCJ) acting as the validation gate before any DNS (Domain Name System) block is applied.

1. The Santiago Court of Appeals decided that DNS blocking of sites identified one by one will be the method used to comply with the Supreme Court’s order to stop the transmission and promotion of online gambling in Chile.
2. The ruling came after telecom companies raised technical concerns about accidentally blocking legitimate websites. The court’s answer was to add another layer of review: each domain must be validated by the SCJ before any block is executed.
3. The dispute began with a protection action filed by Lotería de Concepción against Chile’s main internet operators, including Claro, Entel, GTD, Telefónica, WOM and VTR. The lottery wanted those companies to stop giving access to gambling platforms operating without legal or administrative authorization in Chile.
4. The Supreme Court ruled in September 2025 in favor of the lotteries and ordered telecoms to block the reported sites immediately. The Court of Appeals has now filled in the operational detail: how the block should be implemented without creating collateral damage.
5. In practice, Lotería de Concepción or Polla Chilena de Beneficencia will identify domains, subdomains or redirects linked to unauthorized betting sites and send them to the SCJ. After review, the SCJ passes the validated list to the Subsecretariat of Telecommunications (SUBTEL), which formally notifies the telecom companies and gives them a deadline to apply the DNS block and report compliance back to the Santiago Court of Appeals.

The ruling also includes a continuing review process aimed at catching so-called mirror sites, meaning new addresses created to replace blocked ones. For high-risk operators, that matters because the enforcement model is no longer a one-off takedown; it is a monitored blocking pipeline with a public regulator in the middle.