La Polla Chilena will report betting mirror sites
The blocking of 42 online betting sites in Chile remained intact for only a short time. About ten operators responded by migrating their platforms to new addresses, replacing local extensions ending in .cl with international extensions like .io or other variants, with the aim of continuing to operate in the country. In response to this maneuver, Polla Chilena de Beneficencia announced that it will maintain permanent monitoring of these mirror sites and will report each detected domain to the Superintendency of Gaming Casinos and the Undersecretariat of Telecommunications so that the blocklist can be updated.
The president of the public gambling company, Felipe Dalgalarrando, stated that his institution will continue to provide both agencies with every domain and mirror site it detects, so that the block does not become outdated due to the change of addresses.
The original list arose from compliance with the rulings of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals of Santiago. Based on this, Subtel notified six internet providers with the list of 42 sites submitted by the Superintendency of Gaming Casinos and instructed their blocking via the DNS mechanism, a technique that prevents the resolution of the domain name but not the resource it points to, which explains the immediate effectiveness of the extension change.
From the land-based industry, the president of the Chilean Association of Gaming Casinos, Cecilia Valdés, supported Subtel's decision and praised the government for complying with the court's ruling, although she warned that it is a partial solution that does not address the underlying problem and once again highlights the need for a coordinated and coherent state response to online betting. In this regard, she pointed out a contradiction between agencies: while Subtel orders blocking, the Internal Revenue Service enabled a mechanism a couple of months ago for these same platforms to pay digital VAT.
Chile still does not have a specific legal framework for online betting, which operates outside Law 19995 applicable to land-based casinos. The bill seeking to regulate the activity continues its process in Congress, while the judicial and administrative routes have become the main instruments of containment against unauthorized offerings.
Tags: Polla Chilena de Beneficencia, Felipe Dalgalarrando, betting site blocking, Undersecretariat of Telecommunications