The Chilean SCJ accuses Latamwin of straining the legal framework
The Superintendence of Casinos de Juego de Chile left no room for nuance in its legal filings. In response to the appeals with which Latamwin and Epicbet are attempting to halt the closure of their domains, the agency stated that unauthorized offerings are, in its terms, an illicit exploitation of gambling. Regarding the former company, it went further and, according to documents published by La Tercera, affirmed that it acts with complete impunity, repeatedly straining the national legal framework.
The framework invoked by the regulator is one of general prohibition. In its interpretation of Chilean legislation, gambling and online betting are prohibited except for entities expressly authorized by law, and it mentions Polla Chilena de Beneficencia, Lotería de Concepción, and Teletrak. On this basis, it also questions the tactic platforms use to maintain access, jumping to new domains or alternative addresses each time one is blocked, and in Latamwin's specific case, it notes that the company continues to serve customers through these replacement sites.
Latamwin, owned by W&C N.V., filed a writ of protection against the superintendence and the Undersecretariat of Telecommunications. Its argument is constitutional, claiming that the blockades violate the right to develop economic activities, and it supports this with three elements: an effective business structure, registration with the Internal Revenue Service, and international licenses. The company itself clarified the scope of this argument, stating that it does not seek for these precedents to settle whether its activity in Chile is legal, but rather to show that what is being blocked is an organized operation, with contractual relationships, payment processing, technological infrastructure, and investments behind it.
Epicbet's appeal, operated by Overcooked Limitada, takes a different approach and focuses on the procedure. The company reported that from August 31 to September 28, 2026, four circular official letters were issued by Subtel, and it argued that those affected had no way of adequately knowing the background of each measure. The central complaint concerns the scope, as the agency allegedly added domains that the original judicial resolution, in its interpretation, did not cover. The Court of Appeals rejected its appeal in the first instance, and the company went to the Supreme Court to request a review of its admissibility.
Subtel responded from a narrower and deliberately technical perspective. According to La Tercera, the agency stated that the blocking instructions do not originate from its own decision but from the execution of judicial resolutions, that it lacks the authority to decide whether Internet content is lawful, and that its obligation is to collaborate with the courts and enforce what is firm. Its participation is limited to applying DNS blocking to companies that provide Internet access.
The case file shows where the real battle is being fought. Neither of the two platforms directly disputes whether online gambling is legal in Chile, because there is no statute that allows them to win that point, so the attack has shifted to the procedure: how many official letters, with what background information, concerning which domains, and with what notification. This is an area where the State is vulnerable, as Subtel declares itself an executor without its own discretion, and the superintendence is not the one signing the official letters, so control over the concrete scope of each blockade is distributed between two agencies that attribute different roles to themselves. In the middle appears the contradiction that Latamwin itself uses as a shield: it is registered with the Chilean tax authorities for an activity that the regulator defines as illicit, and as long as Congress does not sanction a licensing regime, this coexistence will continue to fuel appeals like these. It is also worth reading this alongside the report that the consumer organization published yesterday about seven First Division clubs promoting platforms without local authorization, because it describes the other half of the same void: the State blocks the domain while the brand remains visible on the jersey.
Tags: Chile, Superintendency of Gaming Casinos, Latamwin, DNS blocking