Colombia: gambling regulation and licensing

Colombia regulated online gambling before anyone else in Latin America, and the rest of the region has been measured against it ever since. The licensed market opened in 2016, administered by Coljuegos under the framework of Law 643 of 2001. Operators run online casino and sports betting under concession contracts rather than open-ended licences, paying exploitation rights calculated on gross gaming revenue, and the concession model gives the regulator a contractual relationship with each operator rather than only a supervisory one. Its importance is as a template. When Brazil, Peru and Chile came to design their own regimes, Colombia was the working example of a Latin American market that had licensed operators, collected tax and pursued unlicensed sites, and its channelisation record has been cited in every one of those debates. The pressures now are fiscal and competitive. Proposals to apply VAT or raise the effective tax burden on gambling recur, and each one restarts the argument about whether a higher rate on the licensed market drives players toward unlicensed sites that pay nothing. Colombia also no longer has the region to itself, and operators weighing where to deploy capital compare its economics against a much larger Brazilian market. For anyone assessing the region, Colombia is the baseline: the longest-running data set on what regulation actually achieves in Latin America.

Regulator

Coljuegos (Coljuegos)

Regulator type

Gaming board

Headline tax

Not yet verified

Licence required

Yes

Minimum age

Not yet verified

Tax base

Online operators pay exploitation rights (derechos de explotacion) to Coljuegos, calculated on gross gaming revenue, plus administrative and monitoring fees. Reported rates have varied between sources; confirm the current exploitation-rights rate with Coljuegos.

Capital

Bogota

Currency

COP

Official languages

Spanish

Licence required

Yes

Application window

Not yet verified

Local establishment required

Not yet verified

Local server required

Not yet verified

Headline GGR tax

Not yet verified

Effective date

Not yet verified

Tax base

Online operators pay exploitation rights (derechos de explotacion) to Coljuegos, calculated on gross gaming revenue, plus administrative and monitoring fees. Reported rates have varied between sources; confirm the current exploitation-rights rate with Coljuegos.

Advertising permitted

Yes

Affiliate rules

Affiliates are not separately licensed. Only operators holding prior Coljuegos authorisation may be promoted, and promotion of unauthorised online offers is prohibited.

Sponsorship rules

Sponsorship is a form of commercial communication and is available only to authorised operators, carrying the same limits on what may be promoted and the same social-responsibility criteria.

Celebrity and influencer rules

Commercial communications must not encourage gambling among minors or vulnerable populations, which constrains the use of personalities and formats that reach those audiences. Influencer promotion is a commercial communication of the authorised operator.

Social media rules

Online and social media promotion is commercial communication under the same regime, permitted only for authorised operators and confined to the authorised game modalities.

Bonus advertising rules

Promotion is limited to the operator brand and the authorised game modalities, and must satisfy the truthfulness and transparency criteria, which constrains how offers may be presented.

Mandatory warnings

Commercial communications must carry responsible-gambling messaging consistent with the social-responsibility criteria and must identify the operator as authorised.

Penalties for breach

Coljuegos supervises compliance and can impose administrative sanctions and act against the operating contract. Operating or promoting unauthorised games attracts separate enforcement, including site blocking.

As the LatAm pioneer, Colombia is watched for how it handles enforcement against unlicensed sites, VAT and tax proposals on gambling, and channelisation. Other regional markets such as Brazil and Peru have followed with their own frameworks.

Who regulates online gambling in Colombia?

Coljuegos, under the Gambling Act (Law 643 of 2001), which opened online licensing in 2016.

1. Coljuegos

   Coljuegos (Government of Colombia)

   Tier 1Accessed 4 Aug 2026
2. Colombia Gambling Law - Country Comparative Guide

   Legal 500

   Tier 3Accessed 4 Aug 2026