Uruguay Advances on Data and Online Gambling Laws

Update August 26, 2026: Inmujeres continues working with a group of experts on adapting the Inter-American Model Law on digital violence against women to the Uruguayan context. In addition, the open finance bill moved ahead in the Senate, while the online gambling regulation proposal added details on obligations for licensed operators.

The Uruguayan Chamber of Operators and Lessors of Casino and Entertainment Services, CUOASEC, submitted a bill to the executive branch to regulate online gambling. The proposal calls for state authorization for all online gaming activity, limits participation to licensed operators, and adds obligations related to blocking unauthorized platforms, cybersecurity, traceability, data protection, and anti-money laundering.

What does the online gambling bill include?

The CUOASEC-backed text also creates an exclusive .bet.uy domain to identify approved operators, along with a National User Registry and self-exclusion tools for players. It also sets out a sanctions regime and measures to prevent gambling addiction, in a framework designed to concentrate supply under regulatory oversight.

According to Yogonet, the proposal aims to bring order to an activity that still lacks comprehensive regulation approved by the Chamber of Deputies. The outlet noted that a separate online gambling bill, approved by the Senate in August 2022, remains pending in the lower chamber.

What is Inmujeres doing on digital violence?

Inmujeres is working with a group of experts to adapt the Inter-American Model Law to Prevent, Punish, and Eradicate Gender-Based Digital Violence Against Women, approved in December 2025 within the OAS’s MESECVI framework.

According to Búsqueda, the agency is evaluating whether the future initiative on digital violence and the regulation of sexual deepfakes can be introduced as an executive branch bill or as a draft for parliamentary debate. Mónica Xavier, cited by that outlet, said the institutional route remains open.

The model law that Inmujeres is adapting defines digital violence as any action, conduct, or omission against women based on gender that causes physical, sexual, psychological, political, or economic harm and is committed, instigated, or worsened through the use of digital technologies. The text includes threats, repeated harassment, hate campaigns, online sexual harassment, digital extortion, and the obtaining, dissemination, or manipulation of intimate images without consent.

That point signals that the future Uruguayan text will include specific treatment for sexual deepfakes within the framework of data protection and gender-based violence.

How is the open finance system advancing?

The Competitiveness and Cost of Living Reduction bill is moving through Uruguay’s parliament with a chapter that creates an open finance system, which would involve the cross-use and sharing of financial data among entities with the explicit authorization of the data subject.

That issue was debated in the Senate Finance Committee by the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Central Bank of Uruguay. Senator Liliam Kechichian noted that, according to the BCU, the use of personal data will require explicit consent as a safeguard for privacy and banking secrecy.

Legislative review has already advanced with the approval of more than 120 articles in committee, according to La Diaria, while Ámbito reported that the text won broad political support and was scheduled for a full Senate vote that same week. Meanwhile, Senator Sergio Botana warned about the risk that the system could become a "Big Brother" for financial data, something BCU secretary general Viviana Pérez Benech rejected, stressing that the regime does not create an exception to banking secrecy and that information would be shared only securely and with consent.