Peru Bill Would Tax Each Online Bet at 5%

The proposal, introduced by the Civic Works Party in Congress, would lift the selective consumption tax, or ISC, on online bets to 5% of each wager from the current 1%. It would apply only to online betting, not land-based gambling, and it would remain separate from the existing 12% gaming tax on the gross gaming revenue of remote gaming and sports betting operators.

That structure is the point. This is a wager-based tax, not a levy on profit and not one calculated after payouts. Source 1 says the bill would keep the same rate for operators incorporated in Peru and abroad, a tidy equal-treatment provision on paper even if it settles none of the practical arguments about who ends up carrying the cost.

The bill’s stated case for the increase runs on two tracks. One is public health: it cites 14,409 cases of gambling-addiction treatment recorded at health facilities nationwide in 2025 and describes the measure as an additional fiscal instrument within a broader policy of prevention, regulation, oversight and care. The other is revenue. The text says the current 1% ISC generates about S/324 million a year and offers S/1.62 billion at 5% as a “static, illustrative scenario,” which is a more careful label than lawmakers usually give attractive numbers.

The proposal also avoids pretending the market would absorb the change in only one way. According to Source 1, the bill acknowledges operators could eat the higher tax themselves, pass some or all of it to bettors through changed betting conditions, or split the burden. That is the useful part of the document: not the moral language, but the admission that the economics may land in several places at once.

Peru’s regulated online gambling market launched in February 2024 and drew international operators including Stake, Rush Street Interactive and Betsson, according to iGaming Business. Source 1 also notes that confidence in the market was already dented by enforcement of the 1% ISC. A move to 5% would not ban online betting, and the bill explicitly says that is not the intention. It would, however, ask a relatively new regulated market to carry a much heavier tax on each wager than it does now.

If the bill passes, Source 1 says the law would enter into force the day after publication in El Peruano, with the 5% rate applying from the first day of the following calendar month. For now, the operative fact is smaller and cleaner: Peru is considering a fivefold increase in this tax, and only for online bets.