Argentina: LOTBA trains influencers reported for promoting illegal
The Lottery of the City of Buenos Aires (LOTBA) is advancing with an unusual strategy to combat the spread of clandestine betting platforms: training public figures who promote them on social media. The organization reported that it conducted two new courses within the framework of the Reparation Agreements promoted by the Specialized Prosecutor's Office for Gambling (FEJA), led by Dr. Juan Rozas, aimed at influencers and public figures denounced for promoting unauthorized sites.
The objective of the initiative is to raise awareness about the risks associated with illegal gambling, discourage its dissemination on digital platforms, and emphasize the importance of legal gambling as a tool to prevent problem gambling, particularly among children. The training sessions are developed as a consideration within judicial agreements signed with the accused, a path that allows replacing criminal sanctions with educational instances with a commitment to non-reoffending.
During the sessions, participants receive detailed information on the scope of article 301 bis of the Penal Code, which criminalizes the unauthorized solicitation or offering of bets. The course also explains LOTBA's role as a regulatory body in the City of Buenos Aires and addresses the social dimension of problem gambling, focusing on the early exposure of minors to content that normalizes gambling consumption.
According to data released by the organization, more than forty influencers and public figures have already completed this training. The strategy is complemented by sending more than one hundred legal letters demanding an end to the promotion of illegal sites and 162 judicial complaints related to clandestine betting, which shows a control architecture that combines administrative, judicial, and educational channels.
The Buenos Aires model has consolidated itself as one of the few schemes in Latin America that systematically articulates criminal complaints with mandatory training for digital promoters. The premise is clear, according to LOTBA: clandestine offerings thrive on the visibility granted by content creators with massive audiences, many of whom are teenagers and young adults.
In a regional landscape where Brazil, Peru, Colombia, and Chile are advancing with regulatory frameworks for online gambling, the fight against illegal operators and their promotional networks has become a central focus of public policy. The experience of the City of Buenos Aires offers a replicable model, especially for emerging markets facing increasing rates of problem gambling among adolescents and the structural difficulty of blocking sites hosted outside the jurisdiction.
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