Portugal

Online gambling is governed by the Legal Regime for Online Gambling and Betting (Regime Jurídico dos Jogos e Apostas Online, RJO), approved by Decreto-Lei n.º 66/2015, and supervised by the SRIJ, a body within Turismo de Portugal. The SRIJ licenses fixed-odds and pool sports and horse-race betting, banked and non-banked casino games (roulette, banca francesa, blackjack, poker, slots) and bingo to operators serving players on .pt sites. Licences run for three years, require certified gaming systems and a bank guarantee. A special online gaming tax (Imposto Especial de Jogo Online, IEJO) applies: fixed-odds sports betting is taxed on the amount wagered (turnover), while games of fortune and chance are taxed on gross gaming revenue. The SRIJ publishes quarterly market statistics and maintains the national self-exclusion register.

A regulator within tourism

SRIJ is not a standalone agency but a service embedded in Turismo de Portugal, the public tourism body, reflecting the historic link between Portuguese gaming and tourism promotion. Its authority flows from the RJO (Decreto-Lei 66/2015), which brought previously unregulated online betting and casino play into a licensed, taxed framework. Because the regulator sits inside a broader institution rather than operating as an independent commission, its rule-making, licensing and inspection functions coexist with wider tourism policy. This is a structural feature diligence readers tend to weigh when assessing regulatory independence, resourcing and continuity.

Turnover versus GGR

The IEJO taxes products on different bases. Fixed-odds sports betting is charged at 8% of turnover, the total amount staked, rather than on what the operator ultimately keeps. Online games of fortune and chance are taxed at 25% of gross gaming revenue, the sum wagered minus winnings paid out. A turnover base bites hardest on high-payout, low-margin sportsbooks: on a market returning most stakes to players, 8% of everything wagered can consume a large share of the actual gross win, whereas the 25% GGR casino rate scales only with revenue the operator retains.

Pressure to shift base

Peer-to-peer poker and betting between players are taxed differently again, at 35% of the commission the operator charges. The flat structure dates to Lei 2/2020, which repealed the earlier progressive scales in favour of fixed rates. Operators and trade bodies have argued that the turnover-based sports-betting levy is uncompetitive against gross-revenue regimes elsewhere in Europe and can push activity towards unlicensed sites, lobbying for a move to a GGR base. As of verification no such change had been enacted, so the 8% turnover charge remains the governing rate for fixed-odds sports betting.

Licensing and technical gates

Licences run for three years and may be renewed for equal three-year periods. To hold one, an operator must route Portuguese players through a licensed .pt platform, submit its gaming systems for certification, and post a bank guarantee backing tax and player liabilities. Certification checks that random-number generation, game logic and player-account systems meet SRIJ technical rules, both before launch and during operation. These requirements localise the operating stack within Portuguese oversight rather than permitting service from a foreign licence, and give the regulator a combined technical and financial hold over each licensed brand.

Self-exclusion and transparency

SRIJ maintains the national self-exclusion register (autoexclusao), a central list operators must consult so that a person who self-excludes is barred across all licensed .pt sites rather than at a single operator. The minimum age is 18. The regulator also publishes quarterly market statistics covering revenue, stakes, tax and player numbers by product, giving a recurring public read on market size and channelling. For a diligence reader, that cadence of official data is a distinguishing feature: it supports independent tracking of the regulated market without relying solely on operator disclosures.

Tax

Key facts

RTP rules

Licence types

Fees

Change-watch

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