Provincial licensing, applied for separately in each jurisdiction
Argentina
There is no national licence: each province and the City of Buenos Aires regulate separately.
Partly restricted online casino
Colombia
The first Latin American country to licence online gambling nationally, and the regional template.
| Product | Position | What that means |
|---|---|---|
| Online casino | Licensed | Commercial operators can be licensed to offer this product to local customers. |
| Sports betting | Licensed | Commercial operators can be licensed to offer this product to local customers. |
| Online poker | Licensed | Commercial operators can be licensed to offer this product to local customers. |
| Lottery | State monopoly | Reserved to a state or state-controlled operator; no commercial licence is available. |
How the market works
Colombia granted the region's first national online gambling concessions in 2016. The legal basis is the Colombian treatment of gambling as a state monopoly whose operation is conceded to private companies, which pay exploitation rights on their revenue rather than a gaming tax in the usual sense.
Colombia is cited as the regional template because it combined a workable licence with real enforcement. The regulator maintains a blocking list and works with the communications authority to restrict access to unlicensed sites, with the result that the licensed share of play has been high for the region.
Concessions cover online casino, betting and poker, require a locally established company, run for five-year terms, and require technical certification against the regulator's specification before launch. A temporary tax measure applied to gambling during a fiscal emergency in 2025 is a reminder that the fiscal terms, rather than the licence itself, are the volatile part.
Who regulates it
Coljuegos (Coljuegos), based in Bogotá and operating under Law 643 of 2001; Agreement 04 of 2016. The Colombian regulator, which issued Latin America's first national online gambling licences in 2016.
Licence types issued
- Online gaming operating concession
Questions about Colombia
Other markets in Latin America
Authorisation per operator, limited brands per authorisation
Brazil
The largest market to move from unlicensed to licensed in recent years, with betting and casino under one authorisation.
Licensed online casino
Online activity authorised as an annex to a land-based permit
Mexico
A large market with no modern online statute: operators work through holders of permits issued under 1947 legislation.
Partly restricted online casino
Authorisation by the gaming directorate
Peru
A quick, comparatively low-cost licensing regime that became a common first step into the region.
Licensed online casino
Background reading
Legal and compliance
What a gaming licence actually covers
A licence is not a badge of quality and it is not valid everywhere. What it authorises, who it binds, and why one company often holds a dozen.
Legal and compliance
How gambling is taxed, and why the base matters
A tax on stakes and a tax on gross gaming revenue can carry the same headline number and produce completely different businesses.
Legal and compliance
How a company enters a new market
The sequence from legal assessment to launch, and the parts that routinely take longer than anyone plans for.
Legal and compliance
What grey and black markets actually mean
The industry uses three words for the legal status of a market and rarely defines them. Here is what each one means in practice.