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Peru legalises online gambling with unanimous vote in Parliament
The law will come into force within the next few months, with the national legislature decreeing that it will enter the statute within 60 days of the announcement being posted in El Peruano, the government-allied newspaper. Responsibility for enforcing it will lie with Mincetur, the national Ministry for Foreign Trade and Tourism, who have been granted special powers for this purpose.
Betting has existed in Peru for some time already, and varying laws have governed its administration since the days of President Alberto Fujimori, but the recent vote in Congress was the first to fully formalise and set out a framework for its regulation. Under this framework, the state will collect taxes from betting providers so that online betting will deliver revenue to the national exchequer.
The tax structure which will govern how this is done was set out within the legislation that passed through the parliament. 12% of each operator’s tax base – which is their total incomings minus necessary maintenance costs – will be collected monthly from the operator by Sunat, the national taxation agency. A further 2% of the monthly income will be collected as Maintenance Tax for the purposes of funding the regulation of betting.
Other regulations laid down by the law include the permission for operators to offer bonuses to players, with the caveat that those bonuses cannot be directly exchanged for cash. All sports betting sites will also be required to carry a warning with wording defined by the government, which states that “excessive online sports betting could lead to problem gambling”.
Betting sites which break the law could face anything from a small initial fine for minor breaches, up to licence suspension of up to ten years, and eventually permanent disqualification for those who persistently or egregiously transgress. Meanwhile, in remote betting rooms, participants will be allowed to place sports bets using betting terminals. If these rooms are found to have broken the law, they can be closed temporarily or permanently by Mincetur, and their assets seized by the state.
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