Chile retenders two casino licenses against the clock
The Chilean Gaming Casino Superintendence has reopened the bidding process to award two operating licenses: one corresponding to the vacancy available on a national scale and another to the reserved quota in the Aysén Region. The regulator announced on October 20 that the process kicked off with two Exempt Resolutions dated October 14, 2026,No. 992 and No. 993,while the tender specifications were approved through two others, No. 990 and No. 989, and were published on the agency's official website alongside the user manual and the application system.
The schedule is extensive and begins with inquiries. Interested parties have ten business days to request clarifications, until November 3, and the agency has 15 days to respond. Applicants have 120 business days to prepare and submit their technical and economic bids, with the submission hearing scheduled for 10:00 a.m. on April 12, 2027, at the Superintendence’s headquarters on Morandé 360, fourth floor, Santiago. Following that hearing, the regulator will have up to another 120 business days to evaluate the technical proposals in accordance with the tender specifications' methodology.
The tender comes on the heels of two failed licensing rounds. In January of this year, the Superintendence declared the Coyhaique and Ancud processes void after determining that none of the applicant companies had fully met the legal and regulatory requirements set out in the technical specifications. In Coyhaique, Casinos de Juegos Coyhaique S.A., linked to Dreams and the current venue operator, competed alongside Sociedad Río Simpson S.A. from Grupo Meier, while in Ancud, Los Lagos Region, the only bid came from Sociedad Mirador Hueihuén S.A. Following that, the regulator halted the technical evaluations and closed both processes without ever opening the economic bids.
That decision ended up in court. In March 2026, Casinos de Juegos Coyhaique filed an illegality claim before the Santiago Court of Appeals against the regulator's resolution, raising two arguments: that its bid was disqualified due to missing specific tax certificates, and that the authority misapplied the tender rules.
The pattern was later repeated in other jurisdictions. In August 2026, the Superintendence declared the Puerto Varas casino tender void because neither the proposal from Inversiones y Turismo Puerto Varas S.A., linked to Dreams, nor that of Sociedad Quiquilhue S.A., from Corporación Meier, met all the requirements; the regulator subsequently announced a new process with special tender conditions. That same month, the tender for four municipal licenses,Pucón, Viña del Mar, Coquimbo, and Iquique,was resolved, yielding results that once again brought the model under scrutiny: Iquique and Viña del Mar received no bids at all, while Coquimbo and Pucón received only one each, leaving none of the four with any real competition among applicants.
The most pressing issue with this tender lies in the timeline rather than the specifications. The Aysén quota becomes available because the license held by Dreams' Casino de Juegos Coyhaique S.A. expires in April 2027, while the national quota opens up because the license held by Enjoy's Rantrur S.A. expires in May 2027. With the bid submission hearing set for April 12, 2027, and the technical evaluation taking up to 120 additional business days, both current licenses will expire before new operators are awarded. Added to this is the pattern set by recent tenders, where disqualifications came down to formal paperwork rather than the substance of the bids, and where half of the tendered locations drew not a single applicant. The combination of a delayed schedule and a track record of unawarded processes explains why the Chilean licensing model is under scrutiny even before this new deadline begins. A practical question remains unanswered by the regulator,one that directly affects the two operators involved: what happens to venue operations during the gap between the expiration of a license and the awarding of a new one? In previous processes, this continuity was addressed de facto, with the outgoing operator remaining in place; however, such a solution depends on an administrative act not included in the tender rules, and in Coyhaique's case, it involves a company currently litigating against the authority. The other key factor to watch is demand: a tender that in August left two venues without bids and two with only a single applicant does not point to a flaw in the specifications, but rather to an issue with expected profitability,and neither of the two resolutions published this week changes the economic fundamentals behind that lack of interest.
Tags: Chile, Superintendencia de Casinos de Juego, casino tenders, Aysén