Argentina is the southern-most country in South America on the east coast. It's directly east of Chile and south of Bolivia and Paraguay. It borders Uruguay and the Atlantic Ocean to the east.
Overview of Argentina Online Gambling Regulations
Back in 2006, Argentina officially obtained regulations on the interactive gambling industry, as the first licenses were issued for commercial use.
While the federal government was thus decided to prohibit this type of activities...
... authority was handed over to the 23 separate provinces.
As such, Victor Chandler obtained the first license at the time, but pulled out of the business by 2010 due to lack of stringent regulatory and restrictive policies.
Since then, each of the 23 provinces has been putting in some effort into setting up their own online casino platforms.
Bear in mind that lottery and sports betting...
... are under the authority of the National Lottery (Lotería Nacional Socieded del Estado), and each separate region is supposed to cooperate with them in order to offer such services to their residents. The December, 2016 Congress decision removed greyhound racing from the list of eligible betting practices, but that didn’t stop provinces from persisting to build up an interactive gambling industry.
By the end of 2016, the Buenos Aires Provincial Lottery was looking into improving their platform, and thus signed a 6-year contract with IGT.
The previous year saw both the Lottery in Chaco and the province of Misiones working towards their separate strategies for the same goal. The former called upon a previous contract with Ivisa SA and Ecom Chaco; based on it...
... Chaco would get a whole network of agencies and sub-branches that ultimately enabled online betting.
Rumour has it they are planning another expansion into mobile gambling.
The latter, Misionse province first launched their live gaming platform by the end of 2015, featuring casino games, sports betting, poker and slots.
Buenos Aires has since been most vocal in their attempts to expand, and at the same time regulate the industry. Sometime in January, 2018, their Governor closed down 3 casinos before signing a tender for 7 new ones. They are intended for greater industry sustainability – 20-year license expiration, 3,860-slot machine number limit and a possibility for further restrictions. With a release date period set between 11-27 June, the province additionally addressed the issue of proper audits. Thus, during that time, they signed a 12-month contract with the reputable Gaming Laboratories International (GLI).
Argentina Online Gambling Industry Tax Policies
Due to the rather vague and fuzzy situation with licenses and regulations in separate provinces, many offshore operators remain dominant on the Argentina market. In order to benefit from their presence in some way, the government announced taxes. Even though they are yet to be specified, VAT for telecommunications companies of up to 27% indicate a rather high rate for these operators as well.
As for the leading Argentina region, Buenos Aires, they just passed legislation in December, 2018 on interactive gaming taxes. Authorized gambling activities within the province have been enabled since December 5th, and with it a precise tax rate of 15% on all gross wins from casino and sports betting, and 2% additional tax withholdings on gaming machines and bingo wins.
On December 13...
... the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires also licensed interactive gambling activities.
The tax rate was set from 6% on gross wins, up to 25%. With such policies, they expect an improvement in industry’s overall attempts at regulation, as well as expansion through National Lottery – issued licenses.
The Board of Association of Lotteries, Pools and Casinos (known as ALEA for short) is the official authoritative body in the country, operated through individual agencies across the provinces.
For better functioning...
...they have been campaigning for years to have the licensing process moved to the federal level to clean up the industry in Argentina.
However, their efforts have been mostly futile. It's worth noting that corruption exists in a lot of the proceedings for licenses in the country, and that could have something to do with it, but there is no clear evidence available either way.
Player Protection
For the most part, there are no player protections in Argentina in any of the areas where operators can get licenses. This has created an ironic situation where it's actually safer for players to trust their money with foreign, unlicensed operators in a lot of cases.
This system of incentives for the players...
... has made it more difficult each year for licensed operators in Argentina to keep their market share. It's one of the top reasons why the ALEA wants to regulate things on a federal level.
Most recent attempts at imposing tax fees and introducing more rigorous measures is promising, even though the situation is still evolving.
Argentina is the southern-most country in South America on the east coast. It's directly east of Chile and south of Bolivia and Paraguay. It borders Uruguay and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Overview of Argentina Online Gambling Regulations Back in 2006, Argentina officially obtained regulations on the interactive gambling industry , as the first licenses were issued for commercial use. While the federal government was thus decided to prohibit this type of activities... ... authority was...
