New bills reactivate the betting debate in Argentina
The Argentine Congress has on the table a handful of bills on online betting that, with nuances, aim at the same targets: advertising, minors' access and responsible gaming tools. Two recent moves revived that debate and put pressure for one to advance before the parliamentary clock plays against it.
The first came from Mendoza senator Anabel Fernández Sagasti, who asked to reproduce a bill she had presented under file S-1300/24, accompanied by the signatures of senators Sergio Leavy and Sergio Uñac. The initiative sets out a national regulatory framework for internet gaming and betting and, among its central points, bans the advertising, promotion and sponsorship of the sector in both traditional media and the digital environment, with specific restrictions on actions carried out through athletes, influencers and streamers. It also adds a battery of obligations for authorised operators: age verification by biometric or equivalent means, deposit and spending caps, alerts on the time and money wagered, the exclusion of credit cards and of any route implying future indebtedness, and an automatic disconnection after two straight hours of activity, along with a national voluntary self-exclusion programme, a licence registry and coordination mechanisms with the provinces against illegal gambling.
The second push came from deputy Marcela Campagnoli, of the Civic Coalition, who called on the Senate to deal as soon as possible with the bill that already obtained half-sanction in Deputies, before it loses parliamentary status. The legislator centred her argument on the protection of minors and listed the measures she considers indispensable, among them the prohibition of advertising, the limit on credit card use, the elimination of reward bonuses and the biometric registry of users, warning that without that kind of barrier nothing will curb a young person's impulse to bet.
That half-sanctioned text, approved in Deputies in November 2024, already included restrictions on advertising and sports sponsorships, the elimination of welcome bonuses, biometric controls tied to the National Registry of Persons and self-exclusion mechanisms. To those proposals is added a third, the one the national Government presented in May 2026 under the name Law for the Prevention of Gambling Addiction and Regulation of Online Games of Chance, registered in the Senate as file 185/26.
With these pieces coexisting on the floor, the picture shows broad coincidence on the big axes, advertising, access control, protection of minors and responsible gaming, but also the urgency to unblock one of the initiatives before it expires, in a debate that accelerates again just as several of those bills risk losing validity.
Tags: Anabel Fernández Sagasti, Marcela Campagnoli, online gambling regulation in Argentina, gambling advertising ban