Legal casino gambling age in UruguayUruguay runs a strongly state-centred gambling system. Gambling is unlawful unless the state authorises it, and two directorates of the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) control almost all legal supply: the Dirección General de Casinos (DGC), which runs the state casinos and slot halls, and the Dirección Nacional de Loterías y Quinielas (DNLQ), which runs lotteries, the numbers game quiniela and sports betting. A small number of private hotel-casinos operate under concession. Online, the position is a de facto monopoly: since Law No. 19.535 of 2017, any online gambling service without prior authorisation is prohibited, and the only authorised online betting channel is Supermatch, the sports betting product sold under the DNLQ. Online casino games are not authorised for any operator. Unlicensed sites are blocked, and payment providers must refuse related transactions. Several bills to open a regulated online casino market have been debated since 2021, but none had become law by October 2026. This guide explains the framework, how it is enforced, the position of players, taxation and the main protection tools.
Key points
- Law No. 19.535 (2017), Articles 244 and 245, and Decree No. 366/017 prohibit any online gambling service that lacks prior state authorisation.
- The DNLQ orders blocking of unauthorised sites; the communications regulator URSEC passes the orders to internet providers, and the Central Bank (BCU) instructs payment firms to refuse transactions. In July 2024 the BCU extended this duty to payment service and collection providers.
- Supermatch is the only channel the DNLQ lists as authorised for sports betting. No operator holds an authorisation to offer online casino games.
- Players’ gambling prizes are subject to 12% personal income tax (IRPF) above set thresholds, and a 0.75% tax applies to stakes on slot machines.
- A 2021 government bill to let casinos go online passed the Senate in 2022 but stalled in the Chamber of Deputies. New proposals were tabled or announced in 2025 and 2026; none had been enacted at the time of review.
Last reviewed: 6 October 2026.
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Historical development
Uruguay’s starting point is a long-standing principle that games of chance played for money are illegal unless the state permits them. Speaking in the Senate in 2022, Senator Jorge Gandini traced that principle to 1882 and described the state as regulating gambling through two bodies, the lottery directorate and the casino directorate, as reported by the public broadcaster’s news portal Medios Públicos. Lotteries have the deepest roots. According to the regional lottery association CIBELAE, the first lottery draw took place in 1819, and the administration that became today’s DNLQ dates from 1856. The quiniela, a numbers game based on lottery results, was introduced in 1939, followed by Tómbola (1985), 5 de Oro (1990), instant scratch cards (1999) and sports betting (2002).
State casino operation was put on a statutory footing by Law No. 13.921 of 1970, which allowed the state to run casinos directly in a limited number of departments. Law No. 15.206 of 1981 extended this to five-star international hotels, and Law No. 18.719 of 2010 added supervision of horse racing, according to the DGC’s institutional page. Alongside the state halls, Uruguay developed private hotel-casinos. A 2019 report by the radio programme En Perspectiva described three models: casinos owned and run by the state (by the DGC or, historically, the Municipality of Montevideo); “mixed” casinos built by private investors but operated by the state in return for agreed compensation; and fully private casinos, whose operator keeps the gaming profit after paying a concession fee (canon) and taxes.
Sports betting entered the system in 2002. Decree No. 175/002 of 15 May 2002, issued under Article 19 of Law No. 17.453, authorised betting on the results of international sporting competitions, organised and administered by the DNLQ and sold through authorised agencies. This became the Supermatch product. The quiniela banks that sell it state that Supermatch began operating in 2005, while CIBELAE dates sports betting to 2002, the year of the decree.
By the mid-2010s foreign websites offering betting and casino games were widely used in Uruguay. Parliament responded in the 2017 budget accountability law (Rendición de Cuentas), Law No. 19.535, which declared online gambling without authorisation unlawful and set up a blocking regime. That model of a closed, state-controlled market remains in place in 2026.
Legal framework
Uruguay is a unitary state and gambling is regulated nationally. The principal instruments are:
- Law No. 13.921 (1970) and Law No. 15.206 (1981), the basis for state casino operation by the DGC and for casinos in international-category hotels (MEF).
- Decree No. 588/975 (1975), which, according to the 2019 En Perspectiva report, requires private casino concessions to be awarded by public tender. Law No. 17.555 (2002) allows private initiatives to propose such projects.
- Law No. 17.453 (2002), Article 19, and Decree No. 175/002, which authorise DNLQ-administered sports betting.
- Law No. 19.535 (2017), promulgated on 25 September 2017. Article 244 declares that the provision of online gambling or betting services through the internet, technology platforms or apps is covered by the “principle of illegality” unless authorised. Article 245 underpins the enforcement regime. The same law created the tax on stakes and the IRPF charge on prizes.
- Decree No. 366/017 of 21 December 2017, which regulates Articles 244 and 245. It entered into force on 1 January 2018, with the payment restrictions applying from 1 April 2018.
- Decree No. 360/017 and, from 2025, Decree No. 167/025 (replacing Decree No. 359/017), which regulate the taxation of prizes and stakes respectively.
- DNLQ Resolution No. 15/2026, which set identity-verification and responsible gambling standards for online channels (DNLQ).
Decree No. 366/017 is the core of the online regime. Article 1 prohibits “any provision of online gambling or betting services” without prior authorisation. Article 2 makes the DNLQ the competent authority to monitor compliance and adopt preventive or sanctioning measures. Article 3 provides that, once an unauthorised website is identified, the DNLQ issues a resolution ordering its domain to be blocked. Articles 9 and 10 prohibit advertising, sponsorship and promotion of unauthorised games, including promotional e-mails and sports betting announcements. Under Article 11, fines for failing to stop such advertising range from 10,000 to 20,000,000 indexed units (UI, an inflation-linked unit of account), depending on gravity and the offender’s history.
Regulator and licensing model
Uruguay does not have an independent gambling regulator or an open licensing system. It has a state monopoly model with limited concessions. The term “monopoly” here means that the state reserves each type of gambling to itself and either operates it directly or grants concessions to selected private parties.
Dirección General de Casinos
The DGC is a unit of the MEF. According to its institutional page, its tasks are to run state casinos and slot halls (salas de esparcimiento), contribute to public revenue, complement private tourism investment, supervise the national racecourse and other racecourses and betting agencies, and detect illegal gaming. It therefore acts as both an operator and a supervisor, a combination the government has said it intends to separate (see below). The DGC does not publish an online register of authorisations comparable to those of licensing regulators.
Private casino concessions
A handful of private resort casinos operate under concession contracts. The best known is Enjoy Punta del Este (formerly the Conrad), operated by Baluma S.A. The 2019 En Perspectiva report gives the original investment as US$207 million and the minimum annual canon as US$7.5 million. In April 2026, Yogonet reported that the Brazilian group JHSF had agreed to buy 100% of Baluma S.A. for US$160 million, subject to approval by Uruguay’s competition authority; the casino has about 550 slot machines and 75 tables. In Montevideo, the Hotel Carrasco, opened in 1921 and owned by the Municipality of Montevideo, was reopened in 2013 as a hotel and casino run under the Sofitel brand after a concession and restoration by the company Carrasco Nobile, according to the Municipality of Montevideo.
In December 2025, the weekly Búsqueda reported industry figures that private casino operators had invested over US$600 million and employed about 20,000 people, and that about 6,300 legal gaming machines operated alongside an estimated 50,000–60,000 illegal machines in bars and shops. These are estimates attributed to the sector and officials, not official statistics.
Dirección Nacional de Loterías y Quinielas
The DNLQ, also part of the MEF, runs the national lottery and the quiniela family of games and administers sports betting. Its products are sold through private bancas de quinielas, groups of concession holders. In a public statement of 30 September 2026, reported by El Observador, the bancas said that 895 concession holders were organised in 28 banks and that 224 Supermatch agencies operated nationwide. They also reported that Supermatch took about UYU 8.0 billion in stakes in 2025, generating gross gaming revenue (GGR, stakes minus prizes) of about UYU 1.3 billion. Those figures come from an interested party and have not been checked against DNLQ data.
Online gambling
What is permitted
The DNLQ’s illegal gaming page states that www.supermatch.com.uy is the only site authorised to offer sports betting in Uruguay. Supermatch is offered by the bancas de quinielas under the DNLQ; press reports, for example a La Mañana report of October 2026, describe it as the sole authorised online sports betting platform. No operator, public or private, holds authorisation to offer online casino games such as slots, roulette or poker. Bills to change that are discussed below.
Offshore operators and blocking
Under Decree No. 366/017, the DNLQ identifies unauthorised sites and orders their blocking. The communications regulator, the Unidad Reguladora de Servicios de Comunicaciones (URSEC), forwards the order to internet service providers, which must apply it within 48 hours. An example is URSEC Resolution No. 114/024 of 18 April 2024, which instructed operators to block the domains listed in DNLQ Resolution No. 065/2024 within 48 hours. In May 2024, SBC Noticias reported that about 1,500 sites had been blocked. The DNLQ’s own page recorded 1,730 blocked sites as of 29 July 2026. In March 2026 a trade report quoted Senator Felipe Carballo as saying that more than 150 illegal pages were being blocked daily; that figure could not be reconciled with the DNLQ’s cumulative total.
Payment blocking
Decree No. 366/017 also involves the Central Bank of Uruguay (BCU). The DNLQ informs the BCU of illegal operators; the BCU tells payment providers, which must restrict related transactions within 48 hours. Issuers of electronic payment instruments may not authorise payments for unauthorised gambling or the collection of prizes from it. In July 2024, according to Focus Gaming News, the BCU added a new Article 171.1 to its payment system regulations. It extended the duty to payment service and collection providers, which must “implement appropriate prevention mechanisms” to avoid channelling transactions linked to illegal gambling. Previously only electronic money institutions had been expressly covered.
Advertising
Advertising, sponsorship and promotion of unauthorised gambling are prohibited. In May 2024, Radio 2820 reported that the DNLQ had notified two Argentine football clubs whose shirts carried online casino sponsors, and that the state had won a case, upheld by the Supreme Court, against CONMEBOL over stadium advertising. A television channel was also notified after broadcasting a programme containing betting promotion. In August 2025 the DNLQ issued a statement, reported by Gaming Intelligence, reaffirming the ban across digital media, e-mail, public signage and sport, with fines of 10,000 to 20,000,000 UI. Ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the DNLQ, BCU and URSEC again publicised these controls (Casino Compendium, April 2026).
Position of players
Uruguayan law targets the supply of unauthorised gambling, not its use. Decree No. 366/017 prohibits the provision of online services, and its fines apply to operators, agencies and media that breach the advertising rules. The decree contains no sanction against individual bettors, and no prosecution or fine of a player for using an offshore site was found in the sources reviewed. Players are nonetheless affected indirectly: sites may be inaccessible, and banks and payment providers are required to refuse deposits and prize payments linked to unauthorised operators.
The DNLQ’s guidance warns that people using illegal platforms risk their funds, theft of personal data and fraud. Self-exclusion and identity checks apply only to authorised channels.
Taxation
Law No. 19.535 introduced two main gambling taxes from 1 January 2018.
- Tax on winnings (IRPF/IRNR). Prizes from games of chance and horse racing are treated as capital income. According to a KPMG Uruguay summary of Decree No. 360/017, operators withhold 12% of the prize net of the stake when the prize is generated. A prize is exempt if it does not exceed 100,000 UI or is less than 71 times the stake. Non-residents are taxed under the non-resident income tax (IRNR) on the same basis (Calculame, citing Articles 262 and 264 of Law No. 19.535). KPMG notes that national lottery draws are excluded from this withholding regime.
- Tax on stakes (Impuesto a las Apuestas). A 0.75% tax applies to the amount staked on electronic gaming machines and automated instant-result betting in authorised casinos and slot halls. The player is the taxpayer; the operator withholds and pays it (GPA, summarising DGI rules). Decree No. 167/025 of August 2025 consolidated the rules without changing the rate (Carmelo Portal).
A 2021 bill proposed that up to 8% of the gross monthly profit of online casino operations would go to a fund for DGC employees (Yogonet), but this did not become law. No official data on total gambling tax receipts were found for this guide.
Consumer protection and responsible gambling
The DGC runs a free self-exclusion procedure for people affected by gambling disorder. Applications are made in person at any state casino or slot hall, or at the DGC offices in Montevideo, with an identity document and photographs. The procedure covers establishments operated by the DGC; whether it binds private casinos is not stated. The DGC’s psychology service can be contacted on the free line 0800 8631 or at [email protected]. In 2019, the DGC said about 70 people were on its self-exclusion list and announced a trial of facial recognition to enforce it (El Observador).
For lottery and betting products, the DNLQ’s responsible gambling page describes Resolution No. 15/2026, dated 9 January 2026. It requires online gaming portals to carry a visible responsible gambling section with temporary and permanent self-exclusion, self-assessment tools, warning signs and links to support organisations. It also requires identity verification and reinforced authentication. According to Gaming Intelligence, the resolution requires biometric checks with a “proof of life” against civil identity records, gives existing users 180 days to be verified, and requires the bancas to obtain World Lottery Association Level 4 responsible gambling certification. The DNLQ lists Fundación Manantiales and the Hospital de Clínicas among its treatment partners. Uruguay has no single national self-exclusion register covering all forms of gambling. For general advice, see our responsible gambling guide.
Recent and upcoming developments
The 2021–2024 online casino bill
In November 2021 the government of President Luis Lacalle Pou sent Parliament a bill that would let the DGC operate online casino games directly and let private casino concessionaires apply for online authorisation (Yogonet). The Senate approved an expanded version in August 2022 with cross-party support (la diaria). It limited online licences to operators of physical casinos and created a player registry with age verification and safeguards against problem gambling (Medios Públicos). Casino unions warned of job losses. In June 2024, El Observador reported that the bill had been stuck in the Chamber of Deputies’ Finance Committee since 2022, with the Independent Party and the Frente Amplio opposed. Yogonet later described it as having stalled in the Chamber during the previous legislative period.
Government plans for 2026
In December 2025, DGC director Fernando Estévez said the executive of President Yamandú Orsi would present three bills in the first half of 2026 (Búsqueda; Yogonet): converting the DNLQ into a national gaming control authority and the DGC into a decentralised service, so that regulation is separated from operation; enabling licensed online casino gaming; and regulating gaming machines in bars and shops. Luis Gama, executive secretary of the casino operators’ chamber CUOASEC, was quoted by Búsqueda as saying that an operator cannot control itself “for transparency reasons”. No government bill had been found in Parliament at the time of review.
Other proposals
- Senator Felipe Carballo (Frente Amplio), November 2025. A “mixed model” bill creating a state online gaming platform under the DNLQ, a National Online Gaming Regulatory Agency, licensed private operators, a national digital players’ register with spending limits and a fund for problem gambling (El Observador). In March 2026 a trade report said the draft would also make unlicensed operation a criminal offence. Its parliamentary status was not confirmed.
- Casino operators’ chamber, August 2026. CUOASEC, formed in November 2025 and representing private casino operators, presented a proposal to the executive. It would reserve online licences for physical casino operators and create a dedicated .bet.uy domain, a national user register and anti-money laundering safeguards (Yogonet).
- Quiniela banks, September 2026. The bancas argued publicly for a two-tier system with state infrastructure and private concession platforms, with uniform protections such as identity checks, self-exclusion and betting limits (El Observador).
As of 6 October 2026, the 2017 prohibition model therefore remains the law. Whether Uruguay keeps a monopoly, licenses existing casino operators or adopts a wider licensing system depends on bills that have not yet been enacted.
Casino listings for players in Uruguay
The listings below are generated automatically from our casino database. They do not show that an operator is authorised in Uruguay. Under Law No. 19.535 and Decree No. 366/017, no operator is authorised to offer online casino games to residents, and the DNLQ names Supermatch as the only authorised betting site; the listings must not be read as an indication that playing is lawful. Readers can check the DNLQ’s illegal gaming page for its current position.
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Sources and further reading
- IMPO, Ley N° 19535, artículo 244 (2017).
- IMPO, Decreto N° 366/017 (2017).
- IMPO, Decreto N° 175/002 (2002).
- IMPO, Decreto N° 360/017 (2017).
- URSEC, Resolución N° 114/024: bloqueo de sitios de apuestas clandestinas (2024).
- Dirección Nacional de Loterías y Quinielas, Juego ilegal (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Dirección Nacional de Loterías y Quinielas, Juego responsable (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Ministerio de Economía y Finanzas, Institucional Dirección General de Casinos (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Gobierno de Uruguay, Solicitud de autoexclusión para ludópatas de casinos y salas de esparcimiento (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Intendencia de Montevideo, El Hotel Carrasco cumple 100 años (2021).
- CIBELAE, Dirección Nacional de Loterías y Quinielas (accessed 6 October 2026).
- KPMG Uruguay, Monitor semanal N° 757 (2017).
- GPA, DGI: Impuesto a los juegos de azar (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Calculame, Tributación de premios del 5 de Oro Revancha: IRPF e IRNR (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Carmelo Portal, Impuesto a las apuestas: claves del nuevo decreto publicado en Uruguay (2025).
- Focus Gaming News, El Banco Central de Uruguay amplió la regulación sobre transacciones asociadas a juegos de azar y apuestas ilegales (2024).
- SBC Noticias, Uruguay realiza un bloqueo masivo a 1.500 sitios de juego (2024).
- Radio 2820, Uruguay bloqueó 1500 webs de apuestas y prohíbe usar publicidad de casinos al fútbol (2024).
- Gaming Intelligence, Uruguay refuerza el control sobre la publicidad del juego online ilegal (2025).
- Gaming Intelligence, Uruguay endurece las exigencias de juego responsable a los operadores (2026).
- Casino Compendium, Uruguay refuerza los controles contra el juego ilegal de cara al Mundial 2026 (2026).
- En Perspectiva, Uruguay se encamina a tener su tercer casino enteramente privado (2019).
- Yogonet, Brazilian group JHSF acquires Uruguay’s Enjoy Punta del Este casino for $160 million (2026).
- El Observador, Usarán reconocimiento facial para excluir a ludópatas de los casinos (2019).
- Yogonet, Uruguay presentó un proyecto de ley que habilita a los casinos públicos y privados a ofrecer juegos online (2021).
- Medios Públicos, Senado aprobó el proyecto que regula apuestas online (2022).
- la diaria, Ley de juego online logró consenso en el Senado (2022).
- El Observador, Juego online: blancos y Cabildo Abierto buscan aprobar proyecto trancado en el Parlamento (2024).
- Búsqueda, El Poder Ejecutivo presentará tres proyectos para regular juego de casino en línea y tragamonedas (2025).
- Yogonet, Uruguay: el Gobierno presentará una iniciativa para regular el juego online en la primera mitad de 2026 (2025).
- El Observador, Senador del FA presentó proyecto para regular el juego online (2025).
- Revista Casino Perú, Uruguay impulsa la regulación del juego online (2026).
- Yogonet, Operadores de casinos de Uruguay impulsan un proyecto para legalizar y regular el juego online (2026).
- El Observador, Tercer comunicado de Bancas de Quinielas del Uruguay: el juego y el interés general (2026).
- La Mañana, Caixa Loterias vino a estudiar el modelo uruguayo de apuestas (2026).
