Ley N° 19.995 (Chile)

Definition

Ley N° 19.995 sets the general framework for authorising, operating and supervising casinos de juego in Chile, administered by the Superintendencia de Casinos de Juego. Art. 1 fixes that scope and art. 3 defines juegos de azar as games whose outcome depends essentially on chance. Art. 5 does the decisive work for online gambling: licensed games may only be authorised and conducted in casinos covered by the corresponding operating permit, they must be operated directly by the holder with any transfer, lease or assignment prohibited, and "en ningún caso el permiso de operación comprenderá juegos de azar en línea", meaning that in no case shall the operating permit cover online games of chance. Art. 17 restricts permits to closed corporations incorporated in Chile whose corporate purpose is operating a casino, and the statute caps operating permits at 24. The practical consequence is that the only Chilean gambling licence is capped, personal to its holder, confined to physical premises and expressly not a route to online operation, which is why pages describing how to obtain a Chilean online licence are usually describing this permit by mistake.