Argentina

Buenos Aires launches gambling addiction committee to tighten online betting controls

By James Marrison - 6 July 2026

The Buenos Aires Chamber of Deputies has now activated its Committee on Gambling, Lottery and Prevention of Gambling Addiction, giving the province a defined legislative forum for online betting and harm‑prevention proposals.

The committee’s remit includes regulation and supervision of gambling in all formats, rules on advertising and sponsorship, and policies to protect minors from exposure to legal and illegal platforms. It aims to consolidate a wide number of bills and declarations into a single space where projects on access controls, payment methods and public‑health responses can be processed more systematically.

Committee chair Micaela Olivetto has framed expert engagement as central to the new body’s work, signalling that advisers and specialists in online gambling and adolescent addiction will be invited to present evidence to legislators.

The deputy indicated that her main goal for the committee’s inaugural meeting was to start a dialogue with members from all political blocs in the Chamber and to give them a first look at around 20 projects submitted to the Buenos Aires Legislature in the past year to address online gambling. She noted that the original pool of initiatives was much larger, but that prolonged legislative inaction meant most of those texts eventually expired.

The legislator described the issue as “a new problem that has begun to affect younger people, who are just a click away from placing a bet,” and argues that technical input is needed to turn political concern into workable rules. The intention is to use these hearings to test different models for restricting access, calibrating advertising and distinguishing between licensed platforms and the large pool of illegal sites.

A comprehensive bill on gambling addiction has stalled in the federal Congress, leaving Buenos Aires Province dependent on executive‑branch initiatives such as the Inter‑ministerial Board for the Prevention and Treatment of Problematic Compulsive Adolescent Gambling.

“We depend on national legislation, but my responsibility as a deputy is to create spaces for engagement and to support, with public policies, the work of the Inter‑ministerial Board,” she said.