Legal Sports Betting In Peru

Peru’s regulated market traces to Law 31557, signed August 13, 2022. It was the first law in Latin America to cover online casino games and sports betting in one statute. Congress amended it with Law 31806 on June 28, 2023, and MINCETUR (the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism) issued the implementing regulation, D.S. 005-2023-MINCETUR, on October 13, 2023. MINCETUR’s Dirección General de Juegos de Casino y Máquinas Tragamonedas (DGJCMT) began accepting platform authorization applications on February 13, 2024. That’s the date the regulated market actually went live, not the date it was signed into law.

MINCETUR is the regulator for the full life of a Peruvian sports bet: licensing, tax collection and enforcement all run through the DGJCMT. That single-agency structure matters because it also covers Peru’s online casino products under the same law, so a platform authorized for one product line isn’t automatically authorized for the other. More on that split below.

Peru didn’t force every operator offline the moment Law 31557 took effect. Sportsbooks already running in the country before February 13, 2024 could keep taking bets under a transitional “conditional authorization,” provided they filed for the permanent MINCETUR license rather than waiting the process out on the sidelines. That transition period is largely over now, well over a year into the regulated market, but it explains why some brands familiar to Peruvian bettors from before 2024 carried straight through into the licensed era instead of disappearing and re-launching from scratch.

Before Law 31557, Peru had no statute written specifically for online sports betting. Operators and bettors worked in a gray zone with no dedicated regulator to answer to, which is part of why the 2022 law and its 2024 rollout mark such a clean before-and-after line for the market.

A MINCETUR authorization is what makes a Peruvian sportsbook legal, and the agency publishes a public registry of every platform that has cleared the process. That registry uses a code system. Series 21 covers sports betting authorizations, while series 11 covers remote casino games (slots, live dealer, RNG titles) under the same law. A platform can hold one code, the other, or both, which is worth checking before assuming a brand’s casino license also covers its sportsbook.

Betano, bet365, Apuesta Total, Doradobet, Te Apuesto and Inkabet are among the operators running MINCETUR-authorized platforms in Peru. Treat any specific roster as a snapshot, since MINCETUR updates the registry as new applications clear, and the agency’s own extranet platform is the authoritative source for a given operator’s current status.

A licensed platform’s betting menu looks like what’s available in other regulated Latin American markets: pre-match and live in-play lines across soccer, tennis, basketball and combat sports, with markets on the biggest U.S. and European leagues layered in for bettors who want more than the domestic calendar. The exact market count and odds format vary by operator, so the details are worth checking on a specific sportsbook’s own site rather than assumed from one brand to the next.

Licensed betting in Peru isn’t limited to apps and browsers. Physical sports-betting shops, what MINCETUR’s FAQ calls salas de apuestas deportivas a distancia, can operate with a municipal permit tied to a MINCETUR-authorized titular. Wagers placed inside those shops are limited to sports, e-sports, virtual sports and fantasy contests. The full casino menu stays on a separate track, covered next.

That two-layer structure means a physical sala answers to two different authorities at once. The municipality issues the location’s operating permit, and MINCETUR has to have already authorized the titular business running it at the national level. A local permit alone doesn’t make a shop legal without the underlying national authorization behind it.

Peru’s gambling framework didn’t start with sports betting. Land-based casinos and slot halls (tragamonedas) have operated under Law 27153 since 1999, regulated by the same DGJCMT, with hundreds of licensed slot halls and hotel casinos concentrated in Lima. Law 31557 folded online casino products (“juegos a distancia”) into that same structure in 2022, under registry series 11. Same agency, similar licensing logic, separate authorization track — part of why Peru’s regulatory story reads as unusually unified next to countries that split sports and casino between different bodies.

MINCETUR doesn’t treat the license as optional. In 2026 the agency ordered 36 unauthorized gaming and sports-betting platforms blocked, announcing the action through the official gazette, El Peruano. Individual bettors aren’t being prosecuted for using an unlicensed site, but operating outside the license gets sanctioned, and a platform can lose Peruvian access without warning once it gets swept into an enforcement round.

Given that active blocking regime, plus a domestic market that already covers the operators named above, there’s no durable case for steering a Peruvian bettor toward an unlicensed offshore book. A blocked domain doesn’t refund a pending balance. The steadier option is a platform that’s on the MINCETUR registry. Anyone still weighing an offshore site should confirm, on that operator’s own terms page, whether it accepts Peru at all before funding an account.

Peru’s minimum betting age is 18, whether wagering online through a MINCETUR-licensed platform or at a licensed retail sala. Expect standard identity verification at signup, the same KYC step every licensed operator in the region runs before allowing a deposit.

MINCETUR’s rules go a step further than most regional licenses by requiring nationality checks alongside age verification. A licensed platform confirms who’s opening the account and where they’re signing up from as part of onboarding, on top of the usual document checks tied to turning 18.

Peru taxes both sides of a bet, and the two taxes land on different parties. Operators pay a 12% tax on net win under Law 31557, in force since January 1, 2025. Bettors pay separately: a 1% Impuesto Selectivo al Consumo (ISC), a consumption tax withheld the moment a wager is placed, before any outcome is known. That ISC came from Legislative Decree 1644 on September 13, 2024, and phased in over time — 0.3% through June 30, 2025, then the full 1% starting July 1, 2025, under D.S. 008-2025-EF. A Peruvian bettor feels that 1% at the cashier, staking money into a bet slip.

Some press coverage has floated an additional 5% income tax on betting winnings themselves, on top of the ISC. That claim hasn’t been confirmed against a primary MINCETUR or SUNAT source as of this writing. Treat it as reported coverage, and check a licensed operator’s own terms for what actually comes out of a payout today.

The sol is Peru’s national currency and the standard currency for licensed betting in the country. MINCETUR-licensed platforms run deposits and withdrawals through standard banked payment methods, not cryptocurrency. That’s a deliberate rule, not an oversight: the online regime expressly prohibits crypto transactions. A sportsbook advertising Bitcoin or other crypto deposits for Peruvian players isn’t operating inside the license. Specific card, bank-transfer or e-wallet options vary by operator. A platform’s own cashier page is the accurate source for what it currently supports.

Soccer dominates Peruvian betting, led by the domestic Liga 1 and its most-followed clubs: Universitario, Alianza Lima and Sporting Cristal chief among them. International soccer, especially World Cup and Copa América cycles, draws the heaviest spikes in betting interest. Outside soccer, basketball and baseball carry a smaller but real following. Licensed platforms typically carry U.S. and European sports markets too, for bettors who want more than the domestic calendar.

MINCETUR’s regulation requires licensed operators to maintain a Registro de Personas Prohibidas, a self-exclusion register bettors can join to be blocked from licensed platforms. The same rule, in Reglamento article 39, also built in a channel for reporting extortion tied to gambling debts, a protection aimed at bettors being pressured or threatened over money owed rather than at problem play itself. Beyond those tools, there is no independently verified, Peru-specific problem-gambling helpline to list here. Anyone whose betting has become hard to control should talk to a local doctor or mental-health provider as the next step.

Peru’s registry-based licensing puts it in similar company to sports betting in Colombia, another Latin American market that built its own domestic authorization system instead of leaving bettors to offshore platforms by default.

The same is true of sports betting in Mexico, which runs a comparable local-licensing structure.

For a broader look at legal online sportsbooks beyond Peru’s own licensed platforms, that hub covers the wider legal market.