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# Latin America Online Gambling: Beyond Brazil
- URL: https://www.igamingnews.biz/latin-america-online-gambling-beyond-brazil/
- Published: 2026-07-08T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-11T12:57:39.000Z
- Description: In Latin America online gambling, Colombia and Peru show the next markets are won on tax stability, not market size, after both damaged their regulated books.
- Author: iGamingNews Editorial Desk
- Tags: Markets, Regulation

*Image credit: Source: Coljuegos and MINCETUR publications. Never imply stock depicts the actual event.*

**In Latin America online gambling, the markets worth entering next are decided by tax stability, not addressable market size, and Colombia and Peru are the proof: both regulated early and cleanly, then damaged their own licensed operators with tax design that pushed players toward offshore sites.** For any operator or entrepreneur weighing where to go after Brazil, that is the lesson that matters more than any population chart.

The region has been sold as a growth story anchored on one number: how many people can legally bet. Brazil's regulated launch made that framing irresistible, and this publication has covered both its [fiscal wins six months in](https://www.igamingnews.biz/brazil-regulated-market-six-months/) and the [shape of the market that opened in 2026](https://www.igamingnews.biz/brazil-regulated-betting-market-2026/). But the two markets that regulated before Brazil, Colombia and Peru, show that the binding constraint is fiscal, not demographic. A market with 50 million potential bettors and a punitive tax is worth less than a smaller one with a stable rate, because the tax decides how much of that demand the licensed operators ever capture.

## Colombia: the model market that taxed its own channel

Colombia was the first country in Latin America to regulate online gambling, in 2016, and for nearly a decade it was the region's reference point: a single regulator, Coljuegos, a competitive tax on gross gaming revenue, and predictable licensing through operating contracts. Operators used it as the low-risk first step before the harder markets. Then the government reached for the sector as an emergency revenue source, and the model market became a cautionary one.

In February 2025 the government imposed a 19% VAT calculated on player deposits, not on operator revenue, through an emergency decree tied to unrest in the Catatumbo region. Taxing the deposit rather than the margin is the harshest possible base, because it takes a fifth of the money before a single bet is settled. The effect was immediate. The Colombian Federation of Gambling Entrepreneurs reported that online gross gaming revenue had fallen roughly 30% by April 2025, [according to iGaming Business](https://igamingbusiness.com/finance/tax/colombia-tax-online-gambling-deposits/?ref=igamingnews.biz). Codere Online said in November 2025 that it would halt further investment in Colombia unless the tax was reversed.

The tax then went through a full cycle of legal whiplash. The government shifted the levy toward a revenue base, the Constitutional Court suspended the original emergency decree in January 2026 over its legality, and in March 2026 the government reintroduced a deposit tax at a reduced 16% rate through fresh emergency decrees, aiming to raise about COP8.6 trillion, roughly 2.3 billion US dollars, for flood recovery across eight provinces. For an operator, the rate is almost beside the point. The instability is the damage. A market that changes its tax base three times in fourteen months cannot be modeled, and unmodelable markets get deprioritized in favor of predictable ones.

## Peru: a clean framework carrying a heavy load

Peru is the region's cleanest recent build and its clearest warning about tax layering. The framework came through Supreme Decree 005-2023, issued by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism, MINCETUR, in October 2023, with the licensing regime entering force on 10 February 2024\. It did what a good regime should: one national regulator, mandatory local licensing for domestic and offshore operators, six-year licences, and technical certification through accredited laboratories. In its first year MINCETUR authorized dozens of operators and registered hundreds of platform providers.

Then the tax load went on top. Peru applies a tax on gross gaming revenue plus a selective consumption tax, the ISC, levied on the value of every bet placed rather than on operator margin. The ISC ran at 0.3% of each online wager from January 2025, then rose to 1% of turnover on 1 July 2025, [per Yogonet's account of the phased schedule](https://www.yogonet.com/international/news/2025/01/23/92673-peru-implements-gradual-tax-increase-for-online-gaming-and-sports-betting?ref=igamingnews.biz). A turnover tax behaves nothing like a revenue tax. On low-margin, high-recycling products such as sports betting and slots, where the same deposit is staked many times, a 1% charge on every stake compounds into a heavy effective rate on the money that actually stays with the operator.

Operators asked for the increase to be phased precisely because absorbing it was not trivial. They told the regulator that adjusting platforms and obtaining recertification from MINCETUR would take up to eight months. That is the tell: when licensed operators need most of a year to re-engineer their systems around a tax, the tax is shaping the market's economics more than demand is.

## The pattern: tax design is the market

Set the two side by side and the pattern is clear. Both countries did the hard institutional work well. Both then loaded the licensed channel with taxes structured on deposits or turnover rather than on revenue, the two bases that punish the regulated operator hardest and hand the sharpest relative advantage to the offshore book that pays nothing. A player who loses a fifth of every deposit to tax on a licensed site, and loses nothing on an unlicensed one, has a standing incentive to leave, and offshore operators exist to collect exactly that leakage.

This is the same failure mode Brazil is fighting from the other direction, and it explains why [channelisation, not headline revenue, is the number that decides whether regulation worked](https://www.igamingnews.biz/gambling-channelisation-regulation-metric/). A market can post rising tax receipts while its licensed operators shrink, because the receipts come from a base that is itself driving customers away. Colombia's 30% GGR decline is that mechanism in real time.

For operators and entrepreneurs, the practical takeaway is a reordering of the diligence. Market size sets the ceiling. Tax base sets whether you ever reach it. Three questions decide a Latin American entry now, in order. Is the tax levied on revenue, on turnover, or on deposits? How stable has the rate been over the last two years, and has it survived legal challenge? And how large and accessible is the offshore alternative that a mispriced tax will feed? A market that answers those well is worth more than a larger one that does not.

## The risk of contagion

The near-term risk is contagion of method. Governments across the region have watched Colombia use gambling as an emergency revenue lever and Peru layer a turnover tax onto a young market, and finance ministries copy what raises money fast. Expect more deposit and turnover taxes proposed as budget fixes, and expect the same result each time: higher receipts on paper, lower channelisation underneath, and a larger offshore market absorbing the difference.

The opportunity sits with whichever government breaks the pattern. A mid-sized Latin American market that commits to a revenue-based tax, holds the rate steady, and enforces hard against offshore operators would out-compete its larger neighbours for licensed operators and capital, because it would be the one an operator can actually model. Until then, the smart money treats the region the way it should treat any regulated market: it reads the tax code before the population data, because in Latin America online gambling right now, the tax code is the market.

**Related coverage:** [Brazil's regulated market, six months in](https://www.igamingnews.biz/brazil-regulated-market-six-months/) | [Inside Brazil's regulated betting market for 2026](https://www.igamingnews.biz/brazil-regulated-betting-market-2026/) | [Channelisation is the number that decides regulation](https://www.igamingnews.biz/gambling-channelisation-regulation-metric/) | [Why US iGaming legalisation stalled](https://www.igamingnews.biz/us-igaming-legalization-stall/)