Peru Bill Would Raise the Selective Tax on Online Bets From 1% to 5%

A proposal filed in Peru's Chamber of Deputies would multiply the consumption tax charged on every online stake by five, on top of the 12% tax on operators' net revenue. Operators say it could absorb more than half their gross gaming revenue; the bill's own revenue table says it is not a forecast.

• Deputies of the Partido Cívico Obras (Civic Works Party) group have filed a bill to raise the Selective Consumption Tax (ISC) on online games and online sports bets from 1% to 5% of the value of each bet
• The 12% tax on net revenue under Law 31557 stays, and casinos, slot halls and betting shops are excluded
• The bill shows the ISC take rising from about S/324 million a year to S/1.62 billion, but calls that a static, illustrative scenario, not an official projection
• Jeremy Castillo Willis, co-founder of Inkabet and Timberazo, told NEXT.io the rise could swallow 50% to 60% of an operator's gross gaming revenue
• It comes more than a year after the 1% rate drew warnings of a "catastrophic" impact, and four months after Congress came close to cutting the ISC instead

A Fivefold Rise on Every Stake, Filed in the Lower House

Deputies of the Partido Cívico Obras parliamentary group, on the initiative of deputy Luis Aurelio Masco Cáceres, have filed a bill in Peru's Chamber of Deputies that would raise the Selective Consumption Tax (Impuesto Selectivo al Consumo, ISC) on online games and online sports betting from 1% to 5%. The proposal, numbered 00519-2026-2031-CD, keeps the tax base as "the value of each bet", according to its text. Legal news site LP Derecho reported the filing on 7 October; the text is at the proposal stage with no committee report, according to SiGMA.

The current 1% rate has applied since 1 July 2025 under Supreme Decree 008-2025-EF, according to the tax authority, the Superintendencia Nacional de Aduanas y de Administración Tributaria (SUNAT). Foreign-incorporated platforms collect it from players resident in Peru, and the bill keeps those rules. It is a separate levy from the tax on online games and sports betting created by Law 31557, charged at 12% on gross income less prizes and refunds and then allowable maintenance costs, which the bill says it does not change. Its Article 6 leaves casinos, slot halls and physical betting shops under their current regime.

The explanatory statement cites 14,409 attendances for gambling disorder recorded by the Ministry of Health in 2025 and warnings about young people from the National Institute of Mental Health. It argues the ISC can serve an "extrafiscal" purpose as well as raise revenue, while stopping short of claiming the rise would on its own reduce gambling disorder. It does not earmark the extra money: Article 5 leaves prevention to the bodies responsible, within their existing budgets. It compares 5% with Colombia's 16% under Decree 240 of 2026, while acknowledging that Colombia taxes stakes less prizes paid.

The bill estimates the ISC raises about S/324 million a year at 1%, approximately $94 million, and its table shows S/1.62 billion, approximately $471 million, at 5%, an increase of S/1.296 billion. The same page calls these "a static and illustrative scenario" that "do not constitute an official revenue projection", and leaves the real yield, which depends on volumes, elasticity and substitution, to the Ministry of Economy and Finance to assess. Vetoing an earlier bill in July 2025, the government put SUNAT's 2025 estimate at about S/289 million, according to Epicentro TV.

Operators Warn of Exits, and Congress Has Pulled the Other Way

Castillo Willis told NEXT.io that the rise could take 50% to 60% of an operator's GGR and lead some Tier 2 and Tier 3 operators to reconsider staying in Peru. He said most operators had absorbed the 1% rather than pass it on, and questioned revenue figures that, in his view, ignore exits and players moving offshore. Nicolás Samohod of Samohod Abogados told the outlet his firm had held "emergency meetings" with operators, many of them reevaluating their presence, and that a law could be challenged as unconstitutional.

The 1% is already contested. In June, the National Elections Jury certified the 5,000 signatures operators needed to challenge the ISC before the Constitutional Tribunal, according to El Búho. Days later the plenary debated insisting on a bill, approved in June 2025 and vetoed by the government, that the executive warned would cut the ISC burden by 90% to 95% without a rate adjustment, according to Yogonet. A preliminary motion by congresswoman Ruth Luque sent it back to committee, El Búho reported.

On 2 October the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism (MINCETUR), which licenses the market opened in February 2024, said it had blocked 50 more unauthorised platforms, 86 in total, according to El Peruano. The number of licensed platforms was not given, and we could not retrieve MINCETUR's register.

A 5% Stake Tax Is a Tax on Margin, and Margins Are Thin

On our calculation, a sportsbook that keeps 10% of stakes earns S/10 of GGR on every S/100 bet. At 1%, the ISC takes S/1, a tenth of that; at 5% it takes S/5, half of it, and the 12% tax under Law 31557 can take up to S/1.20 more, about 62% in all against about 22% today. Castillo Willis's 50% to 60% matches margins of roughly 8% to 10%. Online casino is starker: a slot that returns 96% keeps 4% of stakes, so a 5% charge on each bet would exceed its GGR unless operators cut payouts, and the bill applies the same rate to games and sports bets. On the same arithmetic, 5% of stakes is heavier than Colombia's 16% on stakes less prizes for any product keeping less than about 31% of stakes. Ireland's betting duty is 2% of turnover; Brazil's budget implies a 15% selective tax on betting from 2027.

The Revenue Table Assumes Nobody Moves

The S/1.62 billion is five times S/324 million, which implies about S/32.4 billion staked a year, approximately $9.4 billion, on our calculation from the bill's figures, and the bill concedes that is a static case. If operators pass the tax on through worse odds and payouts, licensed products lose ground to offshore sites that collect nothing, the sites MINCETUR is still blocking by the dozen after the enforcement gains it has reported. If they absorb it, the smaller ones leave. The bill is right that a foreign platform is not outside Peru's regime, but only authorised platforms collect the tax.

A Harm Case Without Harm Money

The bill rests its case on gambling disorder, yet earmarks nothing for treatment and spares physical venues. Castillo Willis's question, whether the 1% has reduced harm before it is multiplied by five, is one the explanatory statement does not answer with data. And it runs against the direction Congress nearly took in June, which leaves its prospects uncertain.

The bill comes from one parliamentary group, has no committee report, and carries a revenue table its own authors decline to call a forecast. It does show that the tax on stakes, not the 12% on revenue, is now the number that decides whether Peru's licensed market adds up.