San Juan warns about the growth of illegal gambling and ATMs
Concern about the advance of clandestine betting gained an official voice in San Juan this week. The president of Caja de Acción Social, Juan Pablo Medina, warned that the ecosystem of illegal platforms has expanded rapidly in the province and brought with it a figure that the regulatory body has not yet fully grasped: the cashiers who act as intermediaries between bettors and unlicensed sites. The most striking data was the number of active platforms detected, ranging between 400 and 500 pages and social media profiles linked to illegal gambling.
Cashiers function as the operational link between the player and the clandestine site. They receive cash or transfers, manage payments, facilitate sign-ups on unauthorized platforms, and, in many cases, end up acting as informal marketing agents for these operators. According to Medina, the business has become so profitable that they have already identified individuals who quit their formal jobs because they earn more money acting as cashiers for these platforms, a sign of the level of penetration that the parallel economy of online gambling has achieved in the province.
A difficult map to fix
The agency itself admits that the magnitude of the problem is difficult to measure. The figure Medina mentioned changes constantly because platforms open and close accounts rapidly, migrate to new domains when reported, and move between social networks to attract new users. This dynamic complicates the work of the regulatory body and demands more sophisticated technological tools to detect, geolocate, and block sites in real-time, a capability that many Argentine jurisdictions are still building.
Caja de Acción Social also detected another sensitive issue: scams. There are reports of bettors who won and were never paid, and cases where users ended up providing banking and financial information to phantom operators. The scheme combines commercial deception with irregular handling of personal data and, in many cases, leaves the victim with no real possibility of recourse, because the platforms have no local registration or identifiable address.
Minors and clandestine platforms
The other cause for alarm is the access of adolescents to illegal platforms. While authorized operators must apply identity and geolocation controls to prevent minors from entering, clandestine sites do not implement any real verification. According to Medina, all known cases of minors gambling are linked to illegal platforms, a fact that confirms that the regulated and clandestine offerings coexist, targeting completely different audiences in terms of protection.
San Juan is moving forward with its own online gambling regulation process and is awaiting the governor's decree to fully enable the regime, with sanctions for those who organize, administer, or promote gambling without official authorization. Medina clarified that the objective of the scheme is not to promote gambling, but to offer a controlled and safe alternative for adults and, at the same time, combat the clandestine market that currently operates without state supervision.
The cashier as a new piece of the regional debate
The San Juan case opens a debate that spans across Latin America. The growth of informal cashiers is not exclusive to Argentina: it is replicated in Colombia, Brazil, Peru, and Mexico on different scales and modalities. For regulators in the region, the challenge is no longer solely blocking sites but extends to prosecuting an entire network of physical and digital intermediaries that sustain the flow of money towards clandestine gambling. The most advanced Argentine provinces in regulation, such as Buenos Aires, Mendoza, Córdoba, and CABA itself, are closely watching what is happening in San Juan, aware that the battle against the illegal market requires inter-jurisdictional cooperation and more effective criminal tools than those currently available.
Tags: Argentina, San Juan, illegal gambling Argentina, San Juan Social Action Fund, online gambling regulation Argentina, responsible gaming LatAm