🪗 Argentina🇦🇷: 80% of gambling in Buenos Aires Province is illegal

🪗 Argentina🇦🇷: 80% of gambling in Buenos Aires Province is illegal

Or new adventures of the MEGA bill in Wonderland.

➡️ Provincial lawmakers have spent a week discussing a bill to combat illegal gambling and gambling addiction. Gonzalo Atanasof, head of the provincial gambling regulator —Argentina has no single nationwide regulator, and each province has its own rules— stated that 80% of gambling and betting activity in Buenos Aires Province takes place through illegal channels. He also reported that federal budget revenues from gambling and betting amount to approximately USD 3.6 billion, exceeding the combined payments to the IMF and the budget of Argentina’s Ministry of Justice.

➡️ Some statistics

📌 Buenos Aires Province has 7 licensed platforms: bet365, Betano, Betsson, BetWarrior, bplay, Sport.bet.ar, and Stake.
📌 The system has approximately 7 million active accounts.
📌 Sports betting accounts for around 30% of activity across all platforms except bet365, which specializes exclusively in this segment. The remainder consists of virtual slots and roulette.
📌 The Sports Support Fund, which receives 3% of prize payouts, collected USD 532 million between January and September 2026, equivalent to 76% of gross revenue.

➡️ What are lawmakers aiming to achieve❓ We have already described the contents of the mega-bill in detail. It contains numerous proposals, but representatives of the regulatory authority have suggested tougher sanctions, specifically:

📌 reforming Article 301 bis of the Criminal Code to impose 3 to 6 years in prison on those running illegal casinos; the current law provides for suspended sentences;
📌 expanding Law 27.319 to classify illegal gambling as organized crime, which would allow the use of undercover agents who actively encourage offenses;
📌 introducing the concept of a “suspected offender”, which would allow authorities to confiscate the assets of operators under investigation and seize servers as a preventive measure.

➡️ In addition, stronger oversight will require more staff and resources, as well as a specialized prosecutor’s office to bring those responsible to justice.

▶️ What was the final outcome❓ No agreement was reached. Consensus proved elusive, and the bill was not discussed again at the next meeting. For now.

#news #Argentina #gambling #sportsbetting

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