Poker in Paraguay: the market just opened under Law 7438/2025

Paraguay has just done something most of its neighbours have not: opened a competitive licensed online market. Law 7438/2025 ended the state monopoly, and the concessions are being awarded by public tender.

A market that changed in 2025

Gambling in Paraguay is regulated by the Comisión Nacional de Juegos de Azar (CONAJZAR), which now sits under the national tax authority, DNIT.

**Law 7438/2025 legalised online casino gaming**, replacing the previous state monopoly with a competitive concession system. CONAJZAR can award up to three licences per vertical — sports betting, online casino and so on — through public tender. That is a genuinely different structure from the exclusive-operator model Paraguay had before, and from the closed markets elsewhere in the region.

The minimum age is 18 across every vertical.

Tax is withheld at source

Prizes above Gs 500,000 — roughly $67 — attract an **8% withholding tax**, deducted by the operator and remitted to DNIT. The threshold is low enough that most meaningful poker results will cross it, and the deduction happens before you see the money rather than landing on you at year end.

That applies to licensed operators. General information, not tax advice.

Where Paraguayans play live

Paraguay's own live scene is small, and its players travel to the tri-border area. Puerto Iguazú, where Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil meet, hosts the festival that matters most here: Raúl Doutrelau won its $5,000 Super High Roller in 2017 and again in 2018.

The other regular destinations are the Brazilian Series of Poker in São Paulo and the Conrad Poker Tour at Punta del Este in Uruguay, where Horacio Chaves Cortes took fifth in the 2011 Main Event for $112,000 — for years the biggest result by a Paraguayan.

Chaves Cortes still tops the national list, and added the most unusual Paraguayan result on record in June 2026: third in the $1,500 Limit 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball bracelet event at the WSOP, a draw game almost nobody from the region plays.