Colombia: Coljuegos blocks more than 8,600 websites for promoting illegal betting sites and online casinos

Coljuegos, the regulatory entity of gambling in Colombia, informed that to date it has ordered the blocking of 8,676 websites for promoting illegal sports betting sites, as well as online casinos operating without authorization.

In a press release, the Colombian regulator pointed out that "the websites that, within their content, include advertisements to portals that operate illegal betting, may be subject to a domain blocking by Coljuegos."

The regulator also indicated that these portals removed from the Internet are part of the 15,521 blocking orders issued by the entity during the last years, among which there are also around 6,486 virtual casinos and bingos that operated without the authorization of Coljuegos.

In this regard, the President of Coljuegos, Marco Emilio Hincapié, stated: "We want to remind citizens that promoting or advertising illegal gambling portals is an activity not allowed by law. For this reason, we will continue to carry out exhaustive surveillance of the network to prevent illegality from scamming players and affecting health resources."

Marco Emilio Hincapié

“We are attacking illegality both physically and virtually. We have already hired a firm specializing in cybersecurity and digital monitoring to intensify the work of identifying and blocking portals where illegal bets are made or promoted," he added.

"We hope that, during the second half of this year, we will be able to block hundreds of websites and even social network profiles where illegal games of luck and chance are promoted or carried out. With this, we not only attack cybercriminals but also protect health resources," Hincapié explained.

In line with this, the head of Coljuegos urged players that, "before playing, they should verify that the websites are authorized." "Otherwise, they would not only be betting illegally, but they would be putting their money at risk," he added.

Finally, Coljuegos noted that in Colombia there are only 15 portals authorized to operate Internet gambling, which, to date, have paid around COP 152,945 million in operating rights.