Paraguay wants to replace Conajzar with an autonomous regulator
The Paraguayan Executive Branch sent a text to Congress that dissolves the National Gambling Commission (Comisión Nacional de Juegos de Azar) and replaces it with the National Directorate of Gambling (Dirección Nacional de Juegos de Azar), a new body that would inherit the tasks of regulating, authorizing, and overseeing the sector. The initiative bears two signatures, that of President Santiago Peña and Teodora Recalde, head of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, is dated October 12, 2026, and consists of an explanatory statement plus a text of 72 articles.
The fundamental change is in its legal status. DINAJZAR would be established with its own assets and the capacity to manage its resources, as a public legal entity, autonomous and self-governing, whereas Conajzar currently depends on the administrative structure of the State and is tied to the Ministry of Economy and Finance. The project argues that this dependency limits its management capacity and proposes an institution with administrative and financial independence, headed by a national director appointed and removed by decree by the Executive Branch, who concentrates the leadership and representation of the body. Its powers would range from applying sanctions and controlling operators to managing concessions and permits, with the regulation of gaming modalities and the oversight of responsible gambling obligations and anti-money laundering prevention completing the list.
Regarding concessions, the text maintains the division of jurisdictions between nationally scoped games and those authorized by departmental and municipal governments. The directorate would be in charge of national concessions, including casinos, sports betting, quinielas, and other modalities provided for in legislation, and certain activities would have to go out to public tender with a maximum of 10 years per concession, which also could not be extended. The path to incorporate new modalities remains open through reasoned resolutions, and both sports betting and online casinos are expressly included among what is subject to regulation.
The control chapter is the one that expands the most. The body could inspect premises, platforms, and technological systems, request information from operators, and open investigations for non-compliance, with a graduated scale that separates minor, serious, and very serious infractions, whose sanctions range from warnings to fines, temporary closure, suspension or cancellation of authorizations, and disqualification. Among the precautionary measures are the blocking of digital platforms used to operate unauthorized games, as well as the seizure of equipment, and clandestine operation is expressly typified as conduct subject to sanction, with provisions that extend to criminal liability.
Player protection adds its own section. Minors are prohibited, identity verification becomes mandatory, and self-exclusion systems are enabled. Advertising also falls under scrutiny, with limits on materials targeting minors and those that promote betting as a solution to economic problems. Operators also bear duties related to terrorism financing and anti-money laundering prevention, which will be monitored by the competent authorities.
The financing of the new regulator has a concrete figure. DINAJZAR would receive 5% of the revenue generated by nationally scoped games, casinos, and racetracks, and would leave intact the current scheme for distributing fees among their legal beneficiaries, with obligations for transparency, institutional publication, and management reports. During the transition, it would take Conajzar's place in its rights, obligations, and legal relationships, with permits, licenses, authorizations, and concessions already granted remaining valid until their expiration, and ongoing cases continuing under the new structure. The proposal still needs to go through legislative processing before becoming law.
The point to follow is financial, not institutional. A regulator that collects 5% of the revenue from the games it supervises ceases to depend on the general budget and gains the technical capacity it currently lacks, but at the same time ties its own income to the volume of the activity it must control, an incentive well-known in regulatory literature that demands scrutiny of the transparency counterbalances included in the text. The immediate precedent helps to gauge the figure, because Conajzar reported in September a monthly collection that had been falling for several months, and the 5% is calculated on that variable basis, not on a fixed allocation. The other piece to observe is the maximum 10-year term without extension for concessions, which forces new tenders in a market where long-term contracts were for years the main source of litigation.
Tags: Paraguay, DINAJZAR, Conajzar, gaming bill