Online gambling legalized in the province of Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires authorities have approved a law allowing online gambling throughout the province of Argentina.

It should be noted that the bill met with fierce resistance among members of the Cambiemos coalition party, as well as other legislators. However, representatives of both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies voted to legalize online gambling because of the real need to attract additional revenue to the treasury.

According to the local news portal la Politica Online, during the debates, the head of the Unidad Ciudadana party (a coalition created to oppose the ruling party of President Maurício Macri) Maria Teresa Garcia expressed the view that the adoption of this bill is "a ground for money laundering."

Meanwhile, MP Carlos Moreno, also an ardent critic of the current administration, said he did not understand why the governor was promoting this initiative, even though he had been so critical of the gaming industry for so many years.

However, the ruling party claims that de facto online gambling in the province of Buenos Aires has existed for a long time, and the only thing that the government did is took it out of the shadows.

In addition, representatives of the party argue that blocking offshore operators is impractical and has not previously had success in other jurisdictions. The provincial lottery and casino institute (IPLyC) studied the rules for regulating online gambling in several countries and used the implementation of the online gambling laws of Colombia, France and Spain as models of how this area will be regulated in the province in the future.

This initiative was included in the budget for 2019 and the tax law presented to the legislature by Governor Vidal. He also proposed to establish two new taxes on gambling: one for online gambling, and the other, 2%, for jackpots won from slot machines.