TLDR
- The Santiago Court of Appeals approved DNS blocking as the method for shutting down unauthorized online gambling sites in Chile.
- Telecom companies including Claro, Entel, GTD, Telefónica, WOM and VTR must block domains once they are validated.
- Chile’s Superintendency of Casinos (SCJ) will confirm which reported sites are actually illegal gambling platforms.
- The ruling follows a September 2025 Supreme Court decision favoring Lotería de Concepción in its case against telecom firms.
- An industry group, aPAL, says the court may be overstepping its authority and wants a broader Senate bill passed instead.
A court in Chile has laid out a step by step plan for blocking illegal online casino websites. The Santiago Court of Appeals ruled that DNS blocking is the right tool to enforce an earlier Supreme Court order.
The order requires telecom companies to cut off access to gambling sites that are not licensed in Chile. This includes major providers like Claro, Entel, GTD, Telefónica, WOM and VTR.
The case began when Lotería de Concepción sued the telecom firms. The company argued that illegal betting sites were operating freely in the country without any oversight.
Chile’s Supreme Court sided with the lottery in September 2025. Judges ordered telecom companies to immediately block sites offering unlicensed gambling services.
How the Blocking Process Works
The new system has five steps. It starts with Lotería de Concepción and Polla Chilena de Beneficencia reporting suspected illegal domains to the Superintendency of Casinos.
The SCJ then reviews each reported site. Its job is to confirm whether the domain is actually running illegal betting or gambling services.
Once a site is confirmed, the SCJ passes the information to Chile’s telecommunications regulator, SUBTEL. SUBTEL then tells telecom companies which domains need to be blocked.
The telecom firms must add these domains to their DNS blocking systems within a set time limit. They also have to report back to the Santiago Court on how the blocking was carried out.
The system includes ongoing monitoring too. This is meant to catch mirror sites that pop up to dodge the block after the original domain is shut down.
Industry Reaction Is Mixed
Felipe Dalgalarrando, president of Polla Chilena de Beneficencia, welcomed the court’s decision. He asked that the process be put into action quickly so the Supreme Court ruling is actually followed.
Not everyone is happy with the ruling though. The Chilean Association of Online Betting Platforms, known as aPAL, raised concerns about how far the court’s decision reaches.
aPAL said it is concerning that the court appears to be going beyond the specific issue it was asked to decide. The group argues this could create confusion for legal operators in the country.
The association pointed to a bill currently sitting in the Chilean Senate. That bill would set clear rules for who can operate online gambling services and under what conditions.
aPAL wants lawmakers to move forward with that bill rather than leaving enforcement to court orders alone. It says a full legal framework would work better than a case by case blocking system.
For now, the DNS blocking mechanism stands as the main tool for stopping illegal gambling sites in Chile. It will stay in place until the Senate finishes work on a broader law covering the industry.
Telecom companies are expected to begin receiving lists of validated domains from SUBTEL in the coming weeks. Reports on compliance will then go back to the Santiago Court of Appeals as required by the ruling.
