Peru blocks 50 more gambling sites, 86 of a planned 157 this year

Peru's Ministerio de Comercio Exterior y Turismo — Mincetur, the ministry that regulates gambling in the country — announced on 2 October 2026 that it had blocked 50 more remote gaming and sports-betting platforms for offering their services to players in Peru without authorisation. It puts the running total at 86 platforms blocked out of 157 earmarked for blocking during the year, and says the campaign has cut illegal online supply by more than 50 per cent.

The blocking is done by Mincetur's Dirección General de Juegos de Casino y Máquinas Tragamonedas together with the transport and communications ministry, which controls the internet service providers. The legal basis is Ley N° 31557, the 2022 statute that brought remote gaming and remote sports betting under licence in Peru. The ministry says it has assembled a database of roughly 2,000 domains drawn from the illegal-operator lists published by authorities in other countries, which is how the target list of 157 was built.

It is not only a website campaign

The same announcement lists a set of offline actions: game content and payment methods removed from unauthorised sites, betting equipment seized at a clandestine venue in Chilca in the Junín region alongside the national police and the public prosecutor, 17 sports-betting premises and 10 slot-machine rooms closed, 5,195 inspections of slot and casino rooms and a further 4,572 inspections of platforms and betting shops. Mincetur also notes that under the penal code, promoting or taking part in illegal gambling can carry one to four years in prison.

Why it matters to a poker player in Peru

Live poker in Peru is unaffected — this is an online enforcement campaign, and the country's card rooms and travelling festivals such as the National Series of Poker continue as normal. What it does change is the calculation for anyone playing online. Article 7 of Ley N° 31557 requires an operating licence, valid for six years, before a platform may be run for Peruvian players, and Article 30 prohibits advertising a platform that Mincetur has not authorised. A site that is on the ministry's list today can be unreachable from a Peruvian connection tomorrow, with a balance still sitting on it.

The practical step is the dull one: before depositing, check that the operator holds a current Mincetur authorisation rather than relying on a licence badge in a page footer. This is general information about how the rules work, not legal advice.