Buenos Aires to license and regulate online gambling

Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital and its largest province, has proposed a new budget bill that would license and regulate online gambling in the province. Gov. María Eugenia Vidal tabled the new Budget Bill 2019 for discussion and approval of legislators, in a move to have a greater control over online gambling in the region. Notably, this is the first time that the province is stepping into control online gambling.

Many of the online gambling details have yet to be hammered out, but the broad strokes aim for licensing up to seven online operators, who would be overseen by the local Instituto Provincial de Lotería y Casinos. Licenses would be valid for a maximum 15-year term and online gambling revenue would be taxed at a rate of 15 per cent, plus an administrative payment to the regulator of no less than 2 per cent of revenue.

Operators would not be allowed to offer players credit and all other forms of payment will apparently have to be routed through the Bank of the City of Buenos Aires, a publicly owned institution. That squares with Vidal’s previous statement that the idea behind the online licensing scheme was to “regulate who plays, how they do it, everything is banked.”

Once the bill is approved, only licensed companies will be allowed to offer online gambling facilities. The activities and advertisement of the non-licenses operators will be banned.

The licensing regime is expected to come into force from 1 January 2019.