Bolivia’s Gaming Control Authority (Autoridad de Fiscalización del Juego, AJ) authorised 1,226 business promotions in 2025, generating BOB573m (US$83.2m) in prizes, as the regulator stepped up enforcement against an illegal market it said extended from street-level venues to TikTok livestreams.
Licensing and Promotion Activity
The 2025 authorisation count edges past the 1,211 recorded in 2024, according to the AJ’s annual performance figures. Licensed operators generated BOB573m in prize payouts across the year, covering lotteries, business promotions, and authorised gaming venues operating under Law No. 060, the 2010 statute that remains Bolivia’s primary gambling legislation.
The formal market remains narrow. Only one land-based casino holds a full licence — located in Santa Cruz de la Sierra — while the broader authorisation activity covers business promotional campaigns and licensed betting operations rather than a wide network of casino operators. Land-based operators are taxed at 30% of gross gaming revenue under the current regime.
Enforcement: Raids, Seizures, Machine Destruction
In parallel with licensing activity, enforcement actions accelerated. The AJ raided 82 establishments during 2025, seizing 119 gambling devices. A total of 230 illegal machines were destroyed nationwide over the course of the year.
The scale of the destruction operation continues a pattern established in prior years. In May 2025, the AJ oversaw the export of over 540kg of electronic waste from dismantled machines to the United States — an action that drew attention to concerns about Bolivia becoming a disposal route for obsolete or illicit gaming equipment from neighbouring markets.
AJ executive director Marco Antonio Sánchez addressed a specific enforcement challenge that emerged during the year: the use of social media platforms by unlicensed bingo operators.
“These illegal bingos apply a system of ‘micro-scams,’ where they sell cards at low prices and the public does not feel affected if they lose in the draw,” said Marco Antonio Sánchez, executive director of the AJ.
In September, the regulator moved against five companies conducting unlicensed bingo draws via TikTok livestreams, with virtual cards sold through WhatsApp and payments collected via QR-coded bank transfers. The AJ also initiated criminal and administrative proceedings against the organiser of a separate unlicensed online sports betting platform operating domestically — a move described at the time as a shift toward more active use of law enforcement cooperation.
The Online Regulatory Gap
Bolivia’s enforcement activity sits against a persistent structural gap. Law No. 060 prohibits unauthorised online gambling but provides no formal licensing pathway for online operators. The result is a grey market in which foreign platforms — holding licences from Malta, Gibraltar, Curacao, and other jurisdictions — continue to accept Bolivian players without domestic approval and largely without consequence.
Proposals to update the law have circulated since at least 2020, when then-executive director Juan Carlos Antonio Abrego presented draft amendments at a public accountability hearing. Those changes, which included introducing an Online Control System (SICEL) for remote monitoring of slots and betting activity, did not materialise into legislation. Efforts to commission a market-size study across the five largest gambling cities — Santa Cruz, Cochabamba, La Paz, Tarija, and Sucre — were announced in 2023 but have not produced a published framework for licensing reform.
The AJ issued BOB2.17m (approximately $314,000) in fines to unlicensed operators in 2024, a figure that represents the regulator’s most direct financial lever against the informal sector in the absence of a formal online licensing regime.
Tax Regime Under Review
A further dimension to watch is Bolivia’s broader fiscal direction. President Rodrigo Paz Pereira has flagged the abolition of the country’s gambling tax as part of a package of four low-yield levies he plans to send to Congress for repeal. The Ministry of Economy has described the four taxes combined as contributing less than 1% of Bolivia’s total tax revenue. Industry observers have suggested that removing the gambling levy could narrow the cost gap between regulated and informal operations — though the government has not published fiscal modelling on how the AJ would remain funded without it.
Whether the tax proposal advances through Congress, and whether it is accompanied by any update to the online licensing framework, will determine whether Bolivia’s regulated market expands meaningfully beyond the 1,226 authorisations it recorded in 2025. For now, the AJ’s enforcement output is rising while the legislative infrastructure that would allow it to channel demand into a licensed online market remains unbuilt. The country’s broader regulatory trajectory — including any formal movement on B2B licensing models emerging across LatAm — will be worth tracking as neighbouring markets like Brazil continue to mature their frameworks.
Source: iGaming Business
