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Peru has gone from debating whether to regulate online gambling to becoming one of the most closely watched licensing jurisdictions in Latin America – a shift Yuri Guerra, General Director of Casino Games and Slot Machines at Peru’s tourism ministry (MINCETUR), used a recent interview to lay out in detail, alongside the challenges still ahead.
Guerra pointed to concrete results as the clearest marker of Peru’s regulatory maturity: 47 authorisations for remote sports betting and 45 for remote gaming, 349 registered providers spanning platforms, odds compilers, payment gateways and identity verification systems, and eight accredited testing laboratories. That track record earned Peru’s regulator international recognition in 2025, when the International Masters of Gaming Law named MINCETUR its Regulator of the Year – a distinction Guerra sees as validation that Peru “regulates effectively, consistently, and credibly,” not simply that it has rules on the books.
On what’s still needed to sharpen the market’s competitiveness, Guerra was clear that the answer isn’t loosening the compliance bar Peru has set – prior authorisation, platform homologation, audits, traceability and responsible gambling obligations – but making the machinery around it more predictable: clearer technical interpretation, tighter institutional coordination, and fewer redundant burdens that don’t directly serve oversight goals.
Guerra addressed head-on the concern operators have raised over the Selective Consumption Tax (ISC) introduced via Legislative Decree 1644, acknowledging that any tax burden judged uncompetitive risks pushing demand toward unlicensed platforms – a legitimate risk MINCETUR is actively monitoring alongside the Ministry of Economy and Finance through ongoing technical working groups with industry. But he stressed Peru’s channelisation strategy doesn’t rest on tax policy alone: it combines authorisation requirements, technological oversight and direct enforcement, an approach he credits with a 40% reduction in illegal gambling offerings across digital platforms and apps to date.
The scale of that enforcement is substantial. Through 2025, MINCETUR closed seven illegal casinos and slot parlours and thirteen unauthorised sports betting locations, destroying 557 slot machines operating outside the legal framework. Operations continued into 2026 across Puno, Lambayeque, Cajamarca, Lima and La Libertad, shutting seven unlicensed remote betting operations and two slot parlours. On the digital side, the Ministry of Transport and Communications has begun blocking websites, IPs, URLs and apps tied to unauthorised operators, with MINCETUR pursuing individuals and companies promoting illegal gambling through INDECOPI, Peru’s competition and consumer protection authority.
Guerra was candid that offshore platforms, VPN access and alternative payment rails remain a genuinely dynamic challenge, but described Peru’s response as layered by design – legal, technological, financial and operational – rather than reliant on any single control point, with 2026 bringing continued strengthening of data-sharing protocols between licensed platforms and MINCETUR’s systems.
Looking ahead, Guerra outlined four priorities for the rest of 2026: deepening technological oversight and traceability of remote gaming and betting, intensifying enforcement against illegal digital and physical operations, continuing to refine the regulatory framework as the market evolves, and maintaining Peru’s international standing as a jurisdiction other regulators look to as a benchmark – with real-time monitoring of all licensed remote gaming and betting activity as a defining feature of that roadmap.
Asked about the legacy he hopes to leave after a long MINCETUR career, Guerra envisioned a sector where legality is the norm rather than the exception, and proof that a regulator can support innovation and economic growth without ceding control – a model he argues Peru has already begun to demonstrate is achievable.
