Buenos Aires clubs urged to detect child gambling addiction
The idea is to use a place where young people already are. Buenos Aires provincial deputy Carlos Puglelli presented a bill for clubs and sports entities in the province of Buenos Aires to formally join the prevention of problem gambling among children and adolescents, with the task of early detection, guidance, and referral.
The chosen path is to modify Law 12,108, which deals with the Promotion and Oversight of Sports, instead of creating a new regulation. Puglelli argues that this text already serves as a framework because, among its objectives, it recognizes sports as an educational factor and a means of health preservation, and it entrusts the State with paying special attention to children's and youth sports.
The bill carefully defines the scope of the mandate. The deputy himself clarified that he does not seek for a coach or a leader to act as a therapist, nor to burden the club with a clinical responsibility that is not theirs. The function would be strictly preventive: to inform, raise awareness, recognize warning signs, and refer individuals to specialized state services when necessary. For this, the provincial Executive would have to produce and make available to clubs the materials and training tools.
The justification points to what has changed in recent years. According to Puglelli, digital platforms fundamentally altered the relationship with gambling, because having a bet always at hand on the phone, paying for it from a virtual wallet, placing it while the match is happening, and seeing it increasingly linked to sports created an immediacy that previous preventive tools did not foresee. Hence, sports appear both as the ground where betting on results becomes normalized and as the space with the greatest capacity to protect.
The initiative does not come alone. In the Buenos Aires Legislature, there are about twenty projects on the subject, fifteen of them bills and from different blocs, and all will be discussed in the legislative commission created this year for gambling, lotteries, and problem gambling prevention, which will address them comprehensively. Deputy Diego Garciarena has been calling for political will to accelerate this process, focusing on setting rules for online access, limiting authorized payment methods, and curbing advertising aimed at younger audiences.
Gambling should be an informed choice and not a solution to a problem. If you feel it has stopped being recreational, seek professional help and reach out to the assistance services available in your jurisdiction.
Tags: Carlos Puglelli, Law 12.108, Province of Buenos Aires, Diego Garciarena