[bsa_pro_ad_space id=1 link=same] [bsa_pro_ad_space id=2]

Skip to Content

Interactive

Argentina – Legislator seeks to ban online gaming in La Pampa Province

By - 28 August 2015

A project which would ban access to online gaming sites has been put forward in the provincial assembly of La Pampa.

Put forward by a local Deputy Martin Berhongaray the ban would block access to all online gambling sites such as poker or sports betting via local Internet providers in the province.

The new act prohibits the “organisation or commercial exploitation of gambling, through information technology, such as the Internet, telephone or any other means of communication.”

It also states that Internet providers may not enable access to sites or pages that take bets on gaming, sports betting or any other types of betting thereby placing the onus on providers to block access and establish control mechanisms to detect the emergence of new online gambling sites or pages.
The act also imposes heavy penalties, with those found to be breaking the law liable to pay up to a hundred to a thousand times the value of the bets made online. The deputy explained that the reason for his new initiative was that online gaming was becoming increasingly present worldwide and needed to be addressed locally.

According to Mr. Berhongaray, National Law No. 25,690 states that Internet providers are obliged to prevent access to specific sites. As a result Internet providers would be able to restrict access to online gaming sites via security filters and ISP blocking in the province and providers should filter content falling within the categorisation of “online gambling.”

Online gaming in Argentina is limited under current rules, and only a very small number of local interactive betting sites are permitted to offer their services and then only in the province where they operate. Only a handful of online gaming sites have been licensed to offer their services to locals. Generally speaking these sites have faced a number of legal problems and in most cases were closed soon afterwards. The first legally established online sports book went online in Argentina in March 2006. However a number of offshore gaming sites continue to offer their services locally.

Share via
Copy link