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Bolivia – Bolivian Government working on online regulation

By - 5 May 2017

The National Director of Bolivia’s Authority of Taxation and Social Control over Gaming (AJ) Marco Sánchez Vaca, has told local press that the organisation is working on legal regulations which would regulate online gaming.

Sánchez Vaca said that there was no control over offshore operators offering their services locally and that rules could also be brought in which would also cover overseas lotteries which are targeting local players.

“We have received several complaints from people who bought a lottery ticket from other countries, but are being sold within the country. Apparently they won some prizes, but there are no ways or means to claim them,” he said. Sánchez Vaca said that these games were illegal and paid no taxes in Bolivia.
However Sánchez Vaca did highlight the fact that the government was making some headway against illegal land based gaming with the AJ securing five recent convictions against those found to be running illegal gaming parlours.

Locals could be turning to offshore lotteries and other games due to the fact that the land based offer is so limited. The only institute permitted to run lotteries are those still run by the National Lottery Commission of Charity and Health (LONABOL) which runs a single traditional paper lottery called the Lotería Beneficencia Salubridad, which has the lowest turnover in the entire region. Sports betting is also extremely under developed with only a small handful of sports betting shops nationwide.
In October 2016 the AJ announced that it was in talks with the national government over the need to create a new gaming law which would allow the gaming board to intervene in online gaming and take legal action against those found to be operating outside of the law. Meanwhile online gaming especially via social networking sites and via online betting centres (which are often disguised as internet cafes) are growing at a fast pace but the board does not have the legal or technological resources to regulate them.

In 2012 the government conducted a wide ranging study into the issue of online gaming and looked into how gaming was being regulated in other jurisdictions such as in Europe and Latin America. However, the government took no action on the issue after the publication of the report and the report made no mention of how online gaming could be regulated locally.

Image by Marc Davis – P8180009, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2695786

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