A bill in Peru's Congress would raise the selective consumption tax (ISC) on online casino games and online sports betting from 1% to 5%. The proposal comes from congressman Luis Masco Cáceres of the Partido Cívico Obras group and was first reported on 7 October.[1]
It doesn't create a new tax — it raises an existing one. The tax base stays the same: the value of each bet. Foreign platforms would be covered too when the transaction falls within Peru's territorial rules.[1] The bill has not been approved, and we found no schedule for a vote.
Two taxes, two different bases
Peru's regulated online market opened in February 2024, and operators now pay two separate taxes:[2]
| Tax | What it's charged on | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Online gaming tax | Operator's gross gaming revenue (GGR) | 12% |
| ISC | Value of every stake | 1% now (since 1 July 2025), 5% proposed |
You can't add them up and call it a "17% tax" — one is charged on what the operator keeps, the other on everything players wager.
Why a 5% tax on stakes is a big deal
A tax on stakes is charged every time money is bet, win or lose. Take 100 soles of taxable bets: the ISC would go from 1 sol to 5 soles. But if a player recycles the same 100 soles through ten bets, the tax is charged on 1,000 soles of turnover — 50 soles at 5%.
For sports betting, where typical bookmaker margins are only a few percent of stakes, a 5% levy on turnover can be larger than the operator's whole margin on some markets. Operators may absorb part of it, but the usual result is worse odds or smaller bonuses for players. Our guide to how betting odds work shows how margins are built into prices.
The arguments and the numbers
The bill's explanatory statement cites protecting young people, preventing addiction and raising revenue. It mentions 14,409 cases of treatment for gambling addiction in 2025 — a figure quoted in the proposal that we have not been able to check independently with the Ministry of Health.[1]
On revenue, it projects the ISC rising from 324 million soles a year at 1% to 1.62 billion soles at 5%, an extra 1.296 billion.[2] That's a static calculation: it assumes betting volumes stay the same. In practice, higher costs tend to push some players toward unlicensed sites, which pay neither tax.
What happens next
If passed, the law would take effect after official publication, with the new rate applying from the first day of the following month.[1] For a wider view of how countries tax betting, see gambling taxes by region.
Sources
- Proponen elevar de 1% a 5% el impuesto selectivo al consumo aplicable a juegos a distancia y apuestas deportivas a distancia — LP Derecho, 7 October 2026 ↩
- Peru bill proposes fivefold increase in consumption tax rate — iGaming Business, 12 October 2026 ↩
