Is Online Gambling Legal in Peru?
Yes, at platforms authorised by MINCETUR. Online casino games and online sports betting are governed by Law 31557, published in August 2022 and amended by Law 31806 in June 2023, with the detailed rules in Supreme Decree 005-2023-MINCETUR. The regime came into force on 10 February 2024, and from that date only authorised platforms may serve players in Peru.
Authorisation is handled by the DGJCMT, the Directorate General of Casino Games and Slot Machines within MINCETUR. Each activity is authorised separately, so an operator licensed for sports betting needs a separate authorisation to offer casino games. An authorisation runs for six years and can be renewed, foreign companies can hold one, and every operator must lodge a financial guarantee before it starts taking bets.
Land based casinos and slot halls sit under a separate law but answer to the same directorate, which is why one ministry now oversees both halves of the Peruvian market.
Legal age and identity checks
You must be 18 to play. When you register, a licensed platform has to verify your identity, age and nationality, and only registered adults can place a bet. Because the checks happen at sign up, the documents a casino asks for before it pays are usually settled before your first withdrawal rather than during it.
Casino Bonuses in Peru: Welcome Offers Are Allowed
Peru’s law does not ban casino bonuses, and welcome promotions, often built around free spins on sign up, are one of the main ways licensed casinos compete for new players. Every bonus has to be recorded in your player account alongside your bets and prizes, and bonuses count toward the casino’s taxable revenue once they are used to bet.
The one promotional practice the regulations prohibit is free play for people who have not registered an account. Every offer is for verified adults. Peruvian players can compare current offers on our page of welcome bonuses available in Peru, with the wagering for each one in the box beside its card.
Taxes on Online Casino Play in Peru
Peru taxes the casino rather than the player. Law 31557 created a tax on remote games and sports betting, paid by the operator at 12% of its net revenue: the bets and bonuses it takes in, less the prizes it pays out and refunds, less a 2% allowance for running the platform. SUNAT, the tax authority, states that players are not taxpayers of this tax.
What does reach the player is the selective consumption tax, the ISC, which has applied to online bets since January 2025. It started at 0.3% and has stood at 1% of each stake since July 2025, collected when the stake is debited from your account. Rules on gambling tax differ widely between countries, and whether you pay tax on casino winnings depends far more on where you live than on what you play.
MINCETUR Licensed and International Casinos in Peru: The Difference
At a MINCETUR-licensed casino, Peruvian law gives the player four protections:
- Your money is ring fenced. A licensed operator must hold players’ deposits in a dedicated account at a financial institution supervised by the SBS, Peru’s banking regulator.
- Prizes are backed. Every operator must lodge a financial guarantee, and the regulations include mechanisms to protect players if prizes go unpaid.
- Self-exclusion is enforced. Letting a person on MINCETUR’s prohibited persons register play is an infringement for a licensed platform.
- A regulator with real sanctions. MINCETUR can fine an operator up to 200 tax units, cancel its authorisation and, for the most serious breaches, bar it from the market for ten years or permanently.
International casinos that accept Peruvian players are supervised by the authority that licenses them abroad, so a complaint goes there rather than to MINCETUR, and their sites can be among those MINCETUR orders blocked. What each licence covers is compared in licensed versus offshore casinos, and our page of casinos by licence shows every regulator we list casinos under.
Self-Exclusion and Responsible Gambling in Peru
MINCETUR keeps the Registro de Personas Prohibidas, a register of people barred from gambling, and Law 31557 requires every licensed platform to offer its own voluntary self-exclusion as well. You can ask MINCETUR to add you to the register. A platform that lets a registered person play faces sanctions from the regulator.
All gambling advertising in Peru must carry the warning that remote games and sports betting played to excess can cause gambling addiction, and promotion aimed at minors is prohibited. Peru’s register is one of several national systems, and how self-exclusion registers work in each country varies more than most players expect. Free mental health support is available on Línea 113, option 5.
Why Some Casino Sites Are Blocked in Peru
The law gives MINCETUR the power to order the blocking of web addresses, IP addresses, apps and payment methods used by unauthorised platforms, and the Ministry of Transport and Communications carries the blocks out. On 2 October 2026 MINCETUR blocked 50 unauthorised gambling platforms in a single action, bringing the total for the year to 86 of the 157 platforms it had targeted.
For a player, a blocked site can stop loading from one day to the next, taking access to the account with it, and reaching a blocked casino through a VPN creates more problems than it solves.
Casino Payment Methods in Peru: Yape, Plin and PagoEfectivo
Yape and Plin, the mobile payment apps widely used in Peru for everyday transfers, sit alongside PagoEfectivo, which lets you pay in cash at an agent or through online banking, and Visa and Mastercard debit cards. Accounts are usually in soles, and some casinos also accept US dollars.
At MINCETUR-licensed casinos, whatever method you choose has to be in your own name, and winnings are paid back to it or to an account in your name at an SBS supervised bank, which is why a casino pays you back the way you paid in. Cryptocurrency is excluded at licensed casinos. Which casinos take each method is listed in our guide to casino payment methods.
Picking the Best Online Casino in Peru
The first choice is the licence: a MINCETUR casino brings Peru’s own protections and payment rules, while an international casino brings the rules of the regulator that licenses it. After that, the differences come down to everyday use: whether it takes Yape and Plin, how quickly it pays out, how many games it carries and what its welcome offer asks of you, all shown on each card.
