Lottery of the Province of Buenos Aires reports 300 illegal betting sites
The president of the Provincial Institute of Lottery and Casinos, Gonzalo Atanasof, has filed a complaint with the specialized prosecutorial units in the Judicial Departments of Lomas de Zamora, La Matanza, and San Isidro regarding a total of 300 illegal betting sites operating without official authorization in the province of Buenos Aires.
The president of the Provincial Institute of Lottery and Casinos, Gonzalo Atanasof of Buenos Aires, has filed a complaint with the specialized prosecutorial units in the Judicial Departments of Lomas de Zamora, La Matanza, and San Isidro regarding a total of 300 illegal betting sites operating without official authorization in the province of Buenos Aires.
According to a lottery press release, the complaints not only reveal the existence of these illegal platforms but also seek to identify their responsible parties and administrators, aiming to expand the range of criminal charges due to the suspected involvement of these organizations in money laundering and tax evasion.
“We are not just facing simple administrators of illegal pages, but rather an organized criminal chain that launders money abroad, has defined roles, evades taxes, and operates outside the law,” said Atanasof.
The investigation originated from a cyber patrol operation conducted by the personnel of the organization, “which allowed tracking the operation of these platforms and detecting their digital modus operandi.” The lottery said that the matter is especially complicated as “the administrators of these sites constantly change their domains to evade controls, host servers in tax havens like Malta or Curacao, and operate from abroad.”
One of the central axes of the complaint is the access of minors to these platforms.
“Not everything is acceptable. When we talk about gambling among adolescents, we must tackle the problem from two fronts: mental health and safety. We need to prevent gambling addiction, but we also need to block illegal sites that have no controls and allow minors to access them. Today, kids are just a click away because these illegal casinos allow access,” Atanasof said.
“Reporting site by site is insufficient. We need modern tools for a modern crime. This battle cannot be fought by just one jurisdiction: there must be coordinated national policy,” he said.
As a preventive and urgent measure, the complaints requested the immediate order to ENACOM (National Communications Agency) to block these sites to prevent their access and operation throughout the national territory.
The complaint is part of the ongoing work being carried out by the management and adds to 120 other complaints that resulted in 50 raids, where organizations dedicated to operating these types of illegal pages were dismantled. More than 100 reports against influencers have been made through Meta as part of the agreement with the Association of State Lotteries of Argentina (ALEA). This agreement allows identifying and taking down Facebook and Instagram profiles that promote unauthorized betting.
