Santiago Court of Appeals has approved a DNS-blocking procedure for online betting and gambling sites operating in Chile without a licence. The mechanism allows new domains and mirrors to be added without reopening court proceedings.
The decision addresses a practical problem: after initial blocking, operators moved to alternative domains. Now Polla Chilena de Beneficencia, Lotería de Concepción or another party can submit domains, subdomains and redirects linked to unlicensed platforms to the Superintendency of Gaming Casinos (SCJ). SCJ checks whether the address falls under the court order. If it does, SCJ forwards the data to the Subsecretaría de Telecomunicaciones (Subtel), which instructs ISPs to apply DNS blocking. Providers must block within the deadline set by Subtel and report back to the court.
The procedure includes a review stage to reduce the risk of mistakenly blocking legitimate services. If blocking affects a third-party platform, correction is possible. The court chose DNS blocking on Subtel's recommendation as a more precise method compared to broad technical measures that could affect lawful content.
The case began with a lawsuit by Lotería de Concepción against telecoms Claro, Entel, GTD Manquehue, Telefónica Chile, WOM and VTR. The lottery argued that the providers were giving access to online gambling without a Chilean licence. In September 2025 the Supreme Court sided with the lotteries and ordered ISPs to block the betting sites named in the case. The new scheme closes the domain-switching loophole and makes blocking updateable.
