Peruvian President signs off new gambling legislation
New gambling laws will see licence costs rise to 3% of net income or SOL600
President Dina Boluarte has signed off on Law No 31,806, which includes a set of amendments to the country’s gambling regulations.
The new law will take effect 20 days after being published in the government’s official state gazette of Peru on 18 July 2023.
The biggest shake-up for the gambling sector is that the cost of operating licenses will rise to 3% of net income, or SOL600 (£130.35), whichever is the greater.
The law changes also affect the country’s taxation system on the gambling sector.
Under the original law, the tax rate was levied by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism (MINCETUR) and set at 12% of net gaming revenue along with a 2% maintenance tax, but this raised questions from the National Gaming Society (SONAJA) as those operators not domiciled in Peru were without clear regulation and left operators abiding by the rules at a disadvantage.
This change to Law 31,806 will see those concerns alleviated as the tax level will be levelled out under the new system.
The new law also stipulates that the operation of a remote gaming or sports betting technological platform requires a domain name with the extensions “.bet.pe”, “.bet”, “.com”, “.pe”, or “.com.pe”, which can be obtained from a public or private organisation that is responsible for granting domains with the extensions providing they have full authorisation from Peru’s Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism.
Under these new regulations, operators must also implement new KYC requirements, which will include verifying a player’s identity, age and nationality. Furthermore, the registration of players will be required to prevent anonymous betting. In addition, the exploitation of sports betting and online games will now be included in Peru’s Criminal Code and carry a prison sentence of one to four years amber heavy fines and prohibitions for those who violate the law.
Players can now only bet on sporting events that are part of national or international sports associations, federations, or leagues.The law also reforms the existing sponsorship rules so that only companies with a Peruvian licence can sponsor sports teams or sporting events.
Finally, the duration of the enforcement action has been increased from 60 to 120 days.