Gambling addiction help in Chile

Verified helplines

Helplines and online chat

Chile has no state-run gambling helpline. The regulator's responsible-gambling pages publish guides and a decálogo but name no phone line and no clinical service.

The peer-support option is Jugadores Anónimos Chile, the Gamblers Anonymous fellowship, reachable on +56 9 9734 0904 and by WhatsApp on the same number, with meeting details at jugadoresanonimos.cl. It is run by people in recovery, not by clinicians, and it does not publish fixed opening hours.

Self-exclusion

The Sistema Nacional de Autoexclusión Voluntaria lets any adult give up their right to enter the gaming rooms of every casino authorised under Ley 19.995, plus casinos operating under municipal concession. It is free, and the procedure sits in the SCJ's Compendio de Normas, Book Two, Title VIII, Chapter 3.

Three ways to sign it

• Online with ClaveÚnica at autoexclusion.scj.gob.cl: complete the form, accept the conditions, submit.
• By form — download the Formulario de Autoexclusión Voluntaria, sign it before a notary or with an advanced electronic signature, then upload the scan to the same site or send it by registered post to the SCJ at Morandé 360, floor 11, Santiago.
• In person at any casino or at the SCJ office.

Since Circular Nº 102 replaced the earlier rules in 2019, one signature covers the gaming rooms of every casino in the country rather than only the venue where it was handed in, and operators must block your gaming and loyalty cards within two business days.

Getting out again is deliberately awkward. You name an apoderado, a designated representative, when you sign; revocation requires a separate form and your apoderado's presence, either at a casino or the SCJ, or a notarised signature from both of you sent to the SCJ.

The gap is online. Because online betting platforms are not licensed in Chile, they are outside the register entirely. Self-exclusion by country sets out how schemes elsewhere handle this.

Blocking gambling payments and sites

No Chilean bank publishes a gambling-transaction block that a customer can enable, as of September 2026.

With no licensing regime for online betting, there is no official register of approved sites to check against and no regulator to complain to about an online operator. The SCJ says it has no powers over these platforms and can only report them to the Ministerio Público. Blocking therefore falls to your own devices and network: see blocking apps for iOS and Android, and what to do about gambling debt if money is already the pressing problem.

Free treatment and counselling

Chile has no gambling-specific national treatment programme that the gambling regulator points to. The SCJ's responsible-gambling material is preventive (guides, a decálogo, a magazine) and does not route people to clinical care.

That leaves the ordinary public health route: raise gambling with your usual health centre and ask for a referral to community mental-health services. Bring specifics rather than a general statement: how much has gone, over what period, what has already been tried, because gambling disorder is rarely the presenting complaint and is easy for a general consultation to miss. A structured self-assessment gives you something concrete to hand over.

Support for family and friends

The self-exclusion system has one built-in role for someone close: the apoderado. The person signing names a representative, and the exclusion cannot be revoked without that representative taking part. Agreeing to be an apoderado is a real commitment: without you, the revocation stalls on the day the person wants back in.

Relatives cannot start a self-exclusion for someone else in Chile; the request must come from the person themselves. What is left to families is practical: how to help someone with a gambling addiction and signs of gambling addiction.

Gambling law and the regulator

The Superintendencia de Casinos de Juego (SCJ) supervises the casinos licensed under Ley 19.995 and those running under municipal concession. Voluntary self-exclusion is open to any adult, and the SCJ publishes monthly statistics on the register.

Online betting sits outside all of that. In the SCJ's own words, commercially operating online betting platforms in Chile is illegal; the SCJ has no regulatory powers over them and can only refer them to prosecutors. Offshore sites nevertheless take Chilean customers, so people can find themselves gambling on platforms that no Chilean authority supervises and no Chilean register can block.

A bill to license and regulate online betting platforms, Boletín 14.838-03, has been through both chambers and was still under discussion in its second constitutional stage in the Senate during 2026. Until it passes, the position above is the one that applies.