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