In a milestone escalation of Chile’s ongoing digital enforcement battle, the Court of Appeals of Santiago has formally instructed the Subsecretariat of Telecommunications (Subtel) to present an exhaustive, technically viable roadmap outlining appropriate mechanisms to effectively block unauthorized online gambling web pages.
The Lotería de Concepción Anti-Leakage Lawsuit
The landmark judicial decree requires the telecommunications authority to compile specific data regarding network security filters. The document explicitly demands that Subtel present a definitive explanation regarding the suitable technical mechanisms for website blocking. The intervention is backed by a series of high-court rulings establishing that unapproved offshore operators cannot legally transmit or promote games of chance without securing direct legal and administrative authorization from the state.
The legal dispute originally ignited in 2024, when the licensed Lotería de Concepción initiated an aggressive anti-leakage lawsuit accusing six major national internet service providers (ISPs), Claro Chile, Entel, GTD Manquehue, Telefónica Chile, WOM Chile, and VTR, of acting in an irregular manner.
The lottery company proved that the ISPs were directly violating constitutional guarantees, including equality before the law, economic freedom, and private property rights, by failing to block black-market platforms that perform activities prohibited by the laws in force in Chile, enabling unlicensed operators to capture local capital without satisfying any local tax or consumer safety mandates.
The lottery group argued that under Article 24 H of the General Telecommunications Law of Chile, telecom firms are legally obligated to execute website blocks against illegal content in accordance with standing Supreme Court precedents. Under current Chilean law, all forms of gambling remain strictly prohibited unless explicitly authorized via dedicated national lotteries or those operated by the Polla Chilena de Beneficencia.
The Friction of Domain Migration and DNS Bypassing
Subtel has openly acknowledged the immense technical difficulties associated with enforcing website blocks. Just a month ago, the subsecretariat admitted it was unable to successfully enforce a January 2024 Supreme Court decree ordering the blocking of twelve prominent offshore betting pages.
While national ISPs moved quickly to execute the initial blocks, the underlying betting operators bypassed the restrictions within hours by simply migrating their domain names to active, alternative URLs. Subtel explained that because Supreme Court orders are written to target specific, individual web pages rather than the gambling operators themselves or the central gambling platforms, the current legal framework creates an endless loop of domain migration.
During a recent legislative session before the Constitution Commission of Chile’s Chamber of Deputies, Subtel Undersecretary Romina Garrido repeatedly stated that her institution was not a direct party to the initial lawsuit and therefore could not be held responsible for enforcement gaps. However, to satisfy the Court of Appeals, Subtel is currently evaluating a specialized technical protocol to increase blocking efficiency.
Engineers are reviewing the deployment of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), an advanced network security technology that analyzes data traffic in real time, alongside executing broad, network-level keyword blocks targeting terms like “betting”. The final technical protocol is expected to heavily shape online gambling regulation discussions across neighboring Latin American jurisdictions.
