Peru Proposes Changes to Remote Gambling Regulations: Much Lower Maximum Fines and a Mandatory “May Cause Gambling Addiction” Advertising Warning

File photo: San Isidro district in Lima, Peru, photographed 13 August 2013. Geographic context for the district where MINCETUR is based; not its offices or the 2026 consultation announcement. Photo: Protontorniyo / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. Display cropped to fit where necessary; no AI-generated imagery. Image source.

Peru’s Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism (MINCETUR) issued Ministerial Resolution No. 382-2026-MINCETUR on October 20, deciding to publish proposed amendments to the implementing regulations of Law No. 31557 (Supreme Decree No. 005-2023-MINCETUR), together with an explanatory memorandum, for public consultation. The resolution was signed by Foreign Trade and Tourism Minister Rogers Valencia Espinoza. The government’s unified portal, gob.pe, posted three documents on October 21: the resolution, the draft amendments and the explanatory memorandum.

Law No. 31557 is Peru’s basic law regulating remote games and remote sports betting. Under the resolution, the consultation period lasts 15 calendar days, beginning the day after the resolution is published in the official gazette, El Peruano. The documents on the official website are dated October 21; if publication took place that day, the deadline would be November 5. This article has not independently verified the actual gazette publication date. Comments may be submitted through the ministry’s portal, its document-receiving office in San Isidro, Lima, or by email to apuestasdeportivas@mincetur.gob.pe. The General Directorate of Casino Games and Slot Machines (DGJCMT) will compile and analyse them.

Revised Fine Ranges and a Revenue-Based Cap

The largest change in the draft, and the one most likely to prompt debate, concerns administrative penalties under Article 50.

The current regulations provide for a warning or a fine of up to 50 tax units (UIT) for minor infringements; fines of 50 to 150 UIT for serious infringements; and fines of 150 to 200 UIT, revocation, or disqualification for up to ten years or permanently for very serious infringements.

The draft changes these to a warning or a fine of 1 to 11 UIT for minor infringements; 1 to 35 UIT for serious infringements; and revocation of authorisation, disqualification for up to ten years, permanent disqualification, or a fine of 1 to 70 UIT for very serious infringements.

The draft also introduces a cap: regardless of severity, a fine must not exceed 10% of the offender’s total revenue in the preceding year, with any excess treated according to the maximum amount for that category of infringement. However, the cap does not apply to repeat offences or to operating a remote gambling platform or betting premises without a licence. Fines are calculated using the UIT in effect on the date of payment. Companies may establish their previous year’s revenue using information filed with the tax authority (SUNAT), financial statements or accounting records.

The explanatory memorandum says the aim is to make the fine ranges “more consistent with the realities of the industry”, providing a deterrent without “excessive deterrence”. The draft also adds Article 53-A (criteria for setting penalties) and Article 53-B (voluntary correction), listing factors such as the timing of the infringement, voluntariness and remediation of harm as grounds to consider when reducing penalties.

Advertising Rules: A Complete Ban on Promoting Unauthorised Platforms, with Licensees Responsible for Influencer Endorsements

Article 56 on advertising is rewritten in full and is quite specific:

• Direct or indirect promotion of platforms without valid MINCETUR authorisation is prohibited through any medium, format or channel.
• Advertisements must not target minors, present betting as a source of income or a solution to financial problems, associate betting with social success, prestige or personal attractiveness, or encourage continuous, compulsive betting.
• All advertisements must carry the complete warning: “Remote games and remote sports betting, when undertaken excessively, may cause gambling addiction” (Los juegos y apuestas deportivas a distancia realizados en exceso pueden causar ludopatía). It must not be abbreviated, broken up or weakened.
• In video and digital advertising, the warning must be displayed or spoken continuously for at least five seconds; in outdoor and print advertising, it must occupy at least 10% of the layout.
• Advertising through influencers or content creators must be clearly identified as advertising or a commercial collaboration and may promote only licensed platforms. Influencers whose audiences are primarily minors must not be used. The licensee is responsible for the content published by the influencer.

Licensees must display the warning prominently on their platform’s home page and at physical betting premises. The explanatory memorandum identifies the National Institute for the Defence of Competition and Protection of Intellectual Property (INDECOPI) as the enforcement authority for advertising content.

Betting Premises: One Platform per Location, with No Online Casino Games

Article 38 adds five prohibitions: starting or continuing operations without submitting the statutory guarantee to MINCETUR; connecting a single sports betting premises to more than one platform; using an unauthorised, unregistered (uncertified) platform at betting premises; using a platform not authorised for that licensee; and offering remote games (that is, online casino products) within sports betting premises.

The explanatory memorandum says there are currently 4,559 authorised sports betting premises nationwide in Peru.

Player Funds and Other Changes

Article 37 makes the withdrawal deadline more explicit: once a player requests withdrawal of an account balance, payment must take no more than three business days, whether transferred to an account at a financial institution or paid in cash. The explanatory memorandum says this change responds to a March 5, 2024 letter from the operators’ association APADELA. The draft also requires licensees to verify that each user uses only one payment method for each transaction.

For guarantees, renewal guarantees must be submitted before the first business day of February each year, and temporary suspension of operations does not remove that obligation. Temporary suspensions may total no more than 90 calendar days a year. In addition, associated service providers whose registration has been revoked must wait one year before applying for registration again. The draft also sets out procedures for the abandonment, disposal, destruction and donation of seized equipment, and standardises exchange-rate conversion for data reported to MINCETUR’s data centre: settlements in US dollars or other foreign currencies must be converted into soles using the weighted average exchange rate published that day by Peru’s Superintendency of Banking and Insurance (SBS), to align with the tax authority’s approach to calculating the tax base.

Background and Points to Watch

Peru’s remote gambling licensing system has been fully implemented since 2024. In the explanatory memorandum, MINCETUR describes these amendments as “technical and corrective adjustments”, stressing that they are “not a redesign of the regulatory model”. The memorandum’s electronic signature is dated June 8, 2026, indicating that the draft had been under internal consideration for several months.

The reduction in fine ranges is the change most likely to prove contentious. On one hand, licensed operators will welcome the principle of proportionality “linked to revenue”; on the other, Peru’s Congress has recently been discussing an increase in the consumption tax on remote betting, while MINCETUR is stepping up closures of illegal physical betting locations. How the ministry reconciles “lower fines” with a “crackdown on illegal activity”, and whether this adjustment is consistent with the penalties prescribed by Law No. 31557 itself, are expected to be focal points during consultation. Notably, the revenue cap expressly excludes unlicensed operators, so the strength of penalties against illegal platforms is unaffected.

The draft’s explanatory memorandum also says the amendments were proposed jointly by the DGJCMT, formal industry associations and the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

Sources

Ministerial Resolution No. 382-2026-MINCETUR page (gob.pe): https://www.gob.pe/institucion/mincetur/normas-legales/8744194-382-2026-mincetur

Original ministerial resolution (PDF): https://cdn.www.gob.pe/uploads/document/file/10830486/8744194-r-m-n-382-2026.pdf

Draft amendments (PDF): https://cdn.www.gob.pe/uploads/document/file/10830487/8744194-r-m-n-382-2026-proyecto-ds.pdf

Explanatory memorandum (PDF): https://cdn.www.gob.pe/uploads/document/file/10830488/8744194-r-m-n-382-2026-exposicion-de-motivos_reglamento-31557_-03-06_firmado.pdf