The proliferation of illegal pages and the advertising of legal platforms, in the spotlight. There are six active government-authorized licenses.
After having granted seven licenses in recent years for the exploitation of online gambling in the Buenos Aires territory, the provincial government announced this week that it will begin to implement new regulations for legal activity and more tools to attack illegal platforms that, as they noted, they comprise 80% of the sector.
Different officials warned about the advance of gambling among adolescents along with the increasingly strong proliferation of platforms. Promote regulation of advertising.
Argentina also attacks influencers who promote betting.
“We must distinguish between legal and illegal gambling. Perhaps that difference is not so clear when it comes to advertising, but legal gambling is strongly regulated and also generates income for the provincial State that allows progress in health, education, and community development,”
The weekly press conference held every Monday by the provincial government was focused this Monday on a battery of measures that are planned to be taken taking into account a strong advance in adolescent gambling associated with the arrival of legal online gambling - enabled a few years ago in the Province by virtue of the financing it provides - and also to the proliferation of numerous illegal platforms, such as those that, for example, were disrupted months ago in Mar del Plata.
Here all conference
The Minister of Government, Carlos Bianco, was accompanied for the announcements by the Ministers of Health, Nicolás Kreplak, of Education, Alberto Sileoni; and Security, Javier Alonso, as well as the president of the Lottery and Casino Institute, Gonzalo Atanasof. Initially, at the conference, officials drew up a diagnosis based on a digital well-being survey carried out by the Ministry of Health on 434 students from schools in seven Buenos Aires districts.
Among the results, it was highlighted that 22.4% said they use their cell phone for more than eight hours a day, and that 26% responded that they do so between five and eight hours, while 34% of the total number of respondents stated that they have bet at least once on online platforms and that 12.4% responded that they bet many times.
THE ONLINE GAME THE PROVINCE
Online gaming in the Province of Buenos Aires was enabled by the Tax Law that was approved by the 2019 Budget under the administration of María Eugenia Vidal and it was the government of Axel Kicillof that, since the end of 2020, began the path to the granting of the seven licenses enabled by the regulations.
In a resolution signed on December 29, 2020, the Provincial Institute of Lotteries and Casinos granted the license for the development of online gaming to the following companies:
- Argenbingo SA – Will Hill Limited SA Argentina Branch (UT) • Hillside (New Media Malta) PLC – Pasteko SA (UT)
- Hotel Casino Tandil SA – Dynamo Tyche SA – Playtech Software Limited (UT)
- Cassava Enterprises (Gibraltar) Limited – Boldt SA (UT)
- Atlántica de Juegos SA – Stars Interactive Limited (UT)
- Binbaires SA – Intralot International Limited (UT) • Casino Victoria SA – Betsson Malta Holding Limited (UT).
These are all temporary unions of companies taking into account that the law established that the exploitation of online gambling can be carried out “by human or legal persons, public or private entities with domicile established in the Province of Buenos Aires” and provided that “in In the case of foreign legal entities, they may only be presented under the form of Transitory Business Union (UTE) with another national legal entity and provided that the latter has a shareholding of no less than 15% with respect to the former.
“It is a fairly widespread phenomenon among our adolescents,” said Bianco in conclusion to the diagnosis made and even detailed that cases of adolescents who falsify their identities to access online gambling games, even legal ones, were detected. The Buenos Aires official stated that according to sector data, only 20% of online gambling is carried out on authorized legal platforms while 80% is carried out illegally. “Therein lies our main problems because the regulations and controls that the State can carry out are much smaller,” he said.
Thus, Bianco explained that the government ordered the start of various measures and actions summarized in six axes of work:
1. OBSERVATORY As a first measure, the government announced that an “adolescent gambling observatory” will be created in order to have data to outline better public policies.
2. DISSEMINATION CAMPAIGNS The government that in the short term will begin to broadcast state advertising campaigns in the Province regarding prevention in addition to the organization of participatory forums and workshops.
3. NEW REGULATIONS AND LOCKDOWN IN SCHOOLS Among the measures to be implemented, Bianco announced that powerful companies in the sector that are licensed in the Province of Buenos Aires will be encouraged to place on their platforms the use of biometric data to prove identity as a condition for entry. This is intended, he said, for adolescents to use data from relatives or other adults. He also announced that new “self-control mechanisms” will be defined that the platforms must introduce with time limits, alert systems and a self-exclusion scheme with a common form that will go directly to the Ministry of Health so that attention can be given to the person who requires it. In turn, he pointed out that the IP addresses of legal platforms and all illegal ones that are detected and that, in parallel, are reported to Justice, will be blocked in all the Wi-Fi networks of Buenos Aires secondary schools.
4. PREVENTION PROGRAMS The Government Minister said at the press conference that there has been a compulsive gambling prevention program in the Province for 20 years to which “the issue of online gambling will now be added.” In turn, he stated that the ten centers for addressing gambling addiction that exist in the Buenos Aires territory will be valued, including Mar del Plata, which years ago was a focus of conflict due to an attempt to dismantle it.
5. REPORTING ILLEGAL PLATFORMS As part of the battery of measures, the government affirmed that they will strengthen the commission against illegal gambling and indicated that omnibus complaints have already been made against illegal platforms detected on the web and that from now on they will begin to work on specific complaints, specific for each particular site.
Law 15079 established that operating companies must pay a fee to the Province of no less than 2% of gross profits. This financing that the Buenos Aires State obtains through online gambling led Bianco, at this Monday's conference, to distinguish between legal and illegal gambling in the face of a journalistic question that linked them based on the effects on mental health.
