SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
The Ministry of Finance of Chile has proposed a series of new technical measures to be included in the regulation of an online gambling and sportsbook marketplace.
The intervention follows new developments for Bill 035/2022, which seeks to liberalise Chile’s online gambling marketplace by the end of 2023.
In June, the Bill’s tax framework was approved following a review by the Economic Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, responding to concerns by policy stakeholders.
Following its intermission, the Bill has been allowed to progress to other legislative departments for review and opinion before being granted its federal accession.
The Ministry of Finance, which drafted the original bill in March 2022, has published a new technical guidance document, outlining its desired measures to bolster tax generation, market integrity, and commercial standards.
The measures call for the Superintendency of Casinos (SCJ) to oversee the bidding process for Chilean online gambling licenses, and all subsequent monitoring and auditing of licensed platforms/operators.
All online gaming and sports betting platforms will need to operate under the .cl domain and “comply with international security and transparency standards.”
As expected, the Ministry of Finance has proposed to include a “responsible gaming contribution rate” tax charge, set at 1% of licensed operators’ annual gross income. The tax charge will be directly invested in public healthcare and addiction prevention programs.
The Ministry has further requested to modify tax charges on player winnings, which have been proposed at a rate of 15%. Instead, it recommends that players report total winnings from gambling to the Chilean tax service (SII) each year.
Operators must agree to a licensing fee payment of 10,000 UTMs – the monetary scheme used by the Chilean government to calculate inflation against the Peso.
The final measure calls for VAT to be applied to online sportsbook platforms, to ensure that a 2% tax contribution can be allocated to the development of Chile’s National Sports Federation.
With these tax changes, the Chilean government expects to raise 89 billion pesos (£87.6m), instead of 47 billion as in the original proposal.
It was further announced that the Ministry would publish a list of authorised payment service providers (PSPs) that will be allowed to process payment transactions for Chile’s online gambling marketplace.
