Globally, politics is having a huge influence on the progression of gambling legislation. In Europe, largely left and centre-leaning administrations have restricted the sector, and are using it as a budgetary quick fix, hoping increased taxes can improve government cash reserves.
This year, general elections could heavily impact gambling developments in the Latin American markets of Brazil, Peru and Colombia. The sector is relying on gambling-friendly administrations to help advance developments such as legalising land-based casinos in Brazil and ensuring VAT on betting does not return in Colombia.
Experts across LatAm believe operators and investors will be watching the potential shifts in attitude across parties, including how governments view gambling and the subsequent risk of unfavourable changes. In their view, a swing to the right could prove beneficial for the sector.
Atucha Strategic Advisory founder and CEO Ramiro Atucha says a shift to the right is the preferable option for operators, telling iGB: “I think that the more conservative, the more right-wing politicians, would be better just by the fact that they are more open for business and they are in general against the raising of tax.”
Peru is first up, with its presidential election scheduled for 12 April, while Colombia will elect a new president the following month. The general election in Brazil, meanwhile, will be held on 4 October.
What’s happened this year?
Political unease towards gambling has been the most evident in Brazil, with its year-old regulated online market already subject to attempts to restrict advertising and hike taxes. These efforts have been somewhat successful, as incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva this year approved a gradual tax rise that will hike the gambling tax to 15% of GGR from 2028 onwards.
A 15% tax on deposits was scrapped from the government’s Antifaction Bill, but it is likely to return at some point, as its removal was heavily criticised by anti-gambling politicians. Betting is proving to be a hugely contentious issue in Brazil, and this election could fan those flames depending on its outcome.
Lula has been Brazil’s president since January 2023, after ousting far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, who some labelled as the “Tropical Trump”.
Bolsonaro was imprisoned after being found guilty of attempting to organise a coup to remain in power. But while Bolsonaro is banned from running for public office, that doesn’t mean his influence isn’t still prevalent in Brazil. Flavio Bolsonaro, Jair’s eldest son, was put forward for the candidacy by his father.
Atucha tells iGB a right-wing government in Brazil would be the preferable outcome for operators. “Now that the regulation is in place, I think that for operators, Lula is not the best option,” Atucha says.
However, there’s a complicating factor in that the right wing in Brazil is tied to the evangelical community, with many conservative politicians maintaining close relations with the church.
Evangelicals have been vehemently anti-gambling, and Andrew Thompson, a former BBC correspondent in Latin America, says this could create a challenging scenario for right-wing politicians. “You’ll have the more religious lobby groups who will say that gambling and tobacco and sin in general is a bad thing and should be stopped,” Thompson explains. “But you’ll also have right-wing, pro-market politicians who will say if this is what the market demands, then it should be allowed. It does cause some contradictions for people on the right.”
Will gambling be used as a political tool in Brazil?
Plinio Lemos Jorge, president of the National Association of Games and Lotteries, previously told iGB he feared the gambling sector was being viewed by the government as a “quick fix” to its budget issues. Atucha is also concerned the gambling issue will be used as a political campaign tool “for all the wrong reasons”, particularly focusing on licensed operators, rather than the black market.
“The problem is when we talk about gambling and taxing gambling and limiting gambling, we’re only talking about the regulated, because it’s the only part that can be affected,” Atucha says. “And sadly, all these limitations that are being added to regulated gambling make the unregulated more competitive.
“Whenever regulated gambling is hit by regulators, all that happens is not that people stop gambling, they just do it with unregulated operators. So it is a bit hypocritical, the way this is being handled by politicians, because in a way, it’s as if they were protecting the players. In reality, they are pushing the players towards unregulated.”
The political weaponisation of gambling was made even clearer last weekend, when Lula caused uproar by calling upon the government to unite to ban online betting.
“There’s been an ongoing struggle by the Lula government to balance. On the one hand, it’s a centre-left government which depends on poorer sectors of the community to vote for them, so they need to deliver social programmes, and they’ve done quite a lot on that front,” Thompson explains.
He notes the fiscal deficit in Brazil currently sits at around 8%-9% and Lula’s centre-left views mean he has been attempting to carefully balance his party’s views with more business-minded efforts. “But then on the other hand, facing international investors and the business community, they need to say, ‘we’re stable, the finances are under control, please, please come and invest’.”
Lula’s work has been complicated by his party not holding a majority in Congress. “Lula has over the last four years been quite a unifying and moderate force,” Thompson continues. “So the claim that the left-wing governments are going to teach Marxism in schools and the kind of more far-out things, it’s hard to pin them on Lula. “His political identity is definitely on the left, but for the last four years, he hasn’t had a majority in Congress and he’s [still] made deals. He’s essentially a very, very skilled negotiator and deal maker.”
This has had a major impact on the progression of gambling legislation in Brazil, as politicians have flip-flopped significantly over policies, including legalising casinos and whether the current online gambling framework is unconstitutional or not.
Gambling on the backburner in Colombia
While gambling looks set to be a prominent issue in the Brazilian election, it’s unlikely to play such a major role in Colombia, says Sora Lawyers Managing Partner Juan Camilo Carrasco. It was a rocky 2025 for the Colombian online gambling sector, which was slapped with a 19% value-added tax (VAT) in February in response to funding the fight against civil disturbance in the Catatumbo region.
But the VAT has now been suspended by the Constitutional Court, and Carrasco doesn’t expect it to return ahead of the election on 31 May. Colombia was the first LatAm nation to regulate iGaming, and he suggests the longevity of the market and its overall stability make it less vulnerable to political shifts.
Despite the VAT controversy, the industry itself has not been a central issue for candidates ahead of the election. “The industry defended themselves very, very hard when the tax amendment went through the Congress with an initiative from the executive,” Carrasco says. “That noise created kind of like a spotlight for ‘who are those guys? Why are they fighting so hard?’
“However, because now we are in the spotlight, if any future tax reform comes through a discussion, I’m almost 100% sure that the discussion about the VAT will be on the table again, regardless of who is the president.” Carrasco also believes the gambling industry is protected in Colombia thanks to its sizeable contributions to the health sector.
Land-based gambling alone sent COP378.3 billion ($104.8 million) to the Colombian health sector in 2025. The online vertical’s contribution was dented by the VAT, with the Colombia Federation of Gambling Entrepreneurs stating in April that online GGR had dropped 30% since its introduction. “Who wants to mess with the health income? Nobody,” Carrasco says. “But in the end, it just ended in a political storm. [But the VAT] had a massive impact.”
Which way will Colombia’s election go?
It’s been a turbulent presidency for current incumbent Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing leader in a generation. According to Thompson, his time in office has been a “serious disappointment” for left-wing voters, failing to deliver on the sweeping reforms he promised in large part due to significant political opposition.
“He was basically worn down because he had all these proposals for radical change, including health reform, labour union reform, a whole package of reforms, but he lacked a majority in Congress,” Thompson adds. “And Congress has basically said, ‘no, we’re not doing that, we’re not doing that’. So Petro said, ‘well, we’ll have a constituent assembly to bypass Congress’. And Congress said, ‘no, if you read the Constitution, you can’t do that’.
Thompson expects the left-wing government to be ousted, saying: “In Colombia, what we can say is that the right will do well. There’s a sense that Petro tried to put left-wing policies into position, but he wasn’t that successful, and so it’s time for a different approach.”
Carrasco is less sure, as the right-wing vote is currently split. Last weekend, Paloma Valencia was elected as a candidate for a coalition of right-wing and centrist parties. This could take votes away from the far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella.
In the congressional elections at the weekend, Petro’s party won but again failed to secure the majority required to press on with its extensive reforms. In terms of the election’s impact on the gambling sector, Atucha agrees with Carrasco that Colombia will remain a relatively stable market with the VAT unlikely to return this year.
“During election years you usually don’t see very radical changes being made,” Atucha says. “I don’t think that anything major is going to happen, especially with the Supreme Court stopping the VAT. I don’t think that is going to be resolved this year.”
Peru turbulence creates uncertainty for new market
Looking further south, Peru launched its regulated online gambling market in 2024 with a framework mostly deemed to be an attractive one for operators. A number of international companies entered the market, including the likes of Rush Street Interactive, Stake and Kaizen Gaming’s Betano. But the initial optimism was dampened later that year when a 1% consumption tax, removed from the regulation prior to the market’s launch, was reintroduced.
Atucha believes the moving of the goalposts has dented what was previously seen as one of the more attractive regulatory regimes in LatAm. Several tax proposals and regulatory adjustments have already been discussed, with some industry observers questioning whether policymakers fully understand the economics of the sector. “Peru was very flexible, very open, very friendly. [But] now that you’re in, it is like this joke of ‘entering is free, exiting, we’ll see’,” says Atucha. “It does feel like they create certain conditions for operators to enter and then they start to change them, which business-wise is not very [beneficial].
“Right now, there are many changes being discussed in Peru in terms of taxes that you can clearly see are done without a real understanding of what the margins of the casinos are, the investment that the casino needs to make. It’s extremely challenging and on some occasions even impossible to apply.”
The uncertainty surrounding Peru’s gambling sector mirrors its chaotic political environment. Thompson describes the presidency of Pedro Castillo, elected back in 2020, as an “outright disaster” with an unclear political strategy and allegations of corruption.
Castillo’s successor Dina Boularte was subsequently impeached, before Jose Jeri was also removed under a vote of no confidence in February this year. Currently serving as Peru’s interim president is Jose Maria Balcazar who, despite being a left-wing politician, was voted into the role by the predominantly right-wing congress.
Thompson explains this was done to remind the population of how much of a disaster the left wing has been in Peru since Castillo’s election back in 2020. “There’s a kind of deeply, deeply unstable situation in Peru,” Thompson explains. “And some people are saying there could be another impeachment even before we get to the elections.
“Even though [Castillo] was impeached back in 2022, we’re now four years on but the memory is still a powerful electoral factor helping the right rather than the left. I think it is true that public opinion is leaning right. And that is largely because of crime statistics, and the sense people [feel] at risk.”
Crime a key issue across all LatAm’s elections
According to Thompson, the key topics for the upcoming elections in Peru, Brazil and Colombia relate to crime, security and corruption, with previous and current governments failing to properly address such issues. Thompson believes Brazil is the least likely of the three to swing towards the right, with Lula narrowly ahead in the polls.
Industry experts suggest conservative and right-leaning governments tend to provide a more beneficial environment for operators, largely due to their preference for not hiking taxes in order to foster international investment. “I see the right wing as a lot friendlier of individual freedom, individual liberties, a bit more against taxes and a bit more about respecting commercial terms, while left-wing ones, I see more prone to increasing taxes, and subjecting the individual decisions more to what they would consider to be the greater good,” Atucha says.
While the political dynamics differ across Brazil, Colombia and Peru, the underlying theme going into these general elections is one of uncertainty for operators. But the outcome of each election could help determine future strategies for the sector, providing a longer-term view of the political landscape in each market.
Atucha hopes politicians adapt their strategies on gambling based on data, rather than appealing to the emotions of voters. “If they did it on data, they would be doing things completely different,” Atucha concludes. “The best way to collect more money from taxes is to have as much of the bets taxed, and the only way to do that is to have as much of the bets [happening] on regulated sites as possible. And the best way to do that is, yes, there’s some enforcement to be made, but mostly you need to make the regulated operators competitive.”
Original article: https://igamingbusiness.com/legal-compliance/regulation/could-shift-right-wing-government-be-what-gambling-needs-latam/
