Buenos Aires Province’s Chamber of Deputies committee on games of chance, lottery and gambling addiction was unable to meet on Nov. 12 after failing to assemble a quorum, delaying consideration of a sweeping online-betting reform. The absence of opposition legislators and some members of the governing party prevented the session from going ahead.
The bill, introduced by Micaela Olivetto and Facundo Tignanelli of La Cámpora, is intended to curb online betting, particularly among young people and adolescents, while tightening controls on operators and illegal gambling. Olivetto said only Deputy Roberto Vázquez attended the failed meeting.
As reported on Nov. 9, the proposal is formally called the Comprehensive Framework for the Prevention and Management of Risks Associated with Online Betting. It would require personal, non-transferable gambling accounts and real-time facial-biometric checks for logins, deposits, withdrawals and large wagers.
The draft would end a continuous gambling session after one hour and prevent a user from returning for 60 minutes. It would also impose a 24-hour block after three logins in a single day, though the duration-detection mechanism remains among the issues on which legislators have not reached final agreement.
Advertising, promotion and sponsorship would require prior, express and specific authorisation from Lotería y Casinos. The measure would bar marketing aimed directly or indirectly at people under 18, including advertising in schools and in media, platforms, content or time slots principally directed at minors. It would also prohibit language or imagery portraying betting as a playful or entertainment activity.
The official Chamber of Deputies account says the framework would establish a specialised office for illegal online betting within the Buenos Aires Supreme Court’s Procuración General, alongside procedural powers for precautionary measures against unauthorised betting operations. It would also create a provincial monitoring system within the Provincial Lottery and Casinos Institute to record betting activity, prizes, deposits, bonuses and withdrawals.
A principal political disagreement concerns an earmarked 3% of monthly authorised online-betting revenue or prizes intended for neighbourhood clubs and sports organisations. The proposal would direct 85% of that amount to a provincial public-benefit and sports-organisations fund and 15% to scholarships for high-performance athletes from the province.
Opposition legislators instead want the money routed through municipalities under the Unified Distribution Coefficient, with local governments transferring it to clubs and institutions. They estimated the programme at about 75 billion pesos a month, or 900 billion pesos annually, and said it could support roughly 15,000 clubs at an average of 5 million pesos each per month.
Separately, the bill would create a Provincial Fund for Mental Health Care and Cyber-Gambling Addiction Treatment, financed by gambling companies’ contributions equal to their spending on advertising, promotion, sponsorship and other customer-acquisition activity. The fund would support prevention campaigns, affected people and families, athletes and neighbourhood clubs.
The legislation had already been discussed in earlier committee meetings, and opposition groups had submitted amendments. It must still clear the Games of Chance committee as well as the General Legislation and Budget committees. Olivetto and Tignanelli have called another committee meeting for Nov. 17, while seeking approval before the end of the year and ahead of formal provincial budget talks in 2027.
