Argentina's San Juan province to tender five online gambling licenses and unify its self-excluded registry with Mendoza and San Luis

The Caja de Acción Social (CAS) of San Juan, the body that regulates gambling in this province in western Argentina, is finalizing the regulations to put out to tender five online gambling licenses. This has been confirmed by its president, Juan Pablo Medina, who has also announced an agreement with Mendoza and San Luis to create a regional registry of self-excluded people. The three provinces form the Cuyo region, on the border with Chile.

A law in force and zero operators

The rule that regulates online gambling in San Juan is already in force: the decree was published just over 30 days ago. Even so, Medina explained on the program La Picada that the province has zero online gambling sites enabled. The licenses will be given through a tender, to which operators who meet the requirements of the law and provincial regulations may apply.

While that process is finished, any betting website that operates in San Juan without a provincial license is considered illegal. According to Medina, the CAS continues to draft the specifications with the experience of other provinces as a reference, and there is still no date for the tender.

Before the regulation, the agency had already scoured the internet to locate websites accessible from San Juan. Now it focuses on those it considers most relevant and on those that have received complaints. Medina acknowledged a difficulty: illegal operators often change domains, IP addresses and ways of attracting players.

For this reason, the CAS wants to coordinate with the Public Prosecutor's Office. The president explained that the agency cannot gather all the evidence of a judicial investigation on its own, and that prosecutors have more effective tools. Complaints against illegal online casinos must go to the Prosecutor's Office for scams and computer crimes. The CAS also prepares its own channels to receive them: form, email, WhatsApp and face-to-face attention.

Medina also cited the access of minors as one of the great concerns of the regulation. One of the objectives is to add technological controls, even biometrics , to prevent them from registering.

A register of self-excluded for all of Cuyo

Today each of the three provinces has its own list of self-excluded, and nothing prevents a person registered in one from playing in the other two. "Once the law is made, the trap is made," Medina summarized in an interview on HUARPE TV. He gave an example: those who self-exclude themselves in San Juan can go to Mendoza or San Luis to play.

There is already a draft of the agreement. There are some meetings left to finalize the last details and, once signed, each province will have between 60 and 90 days to adapt its systems. In San Juan there are about 250 people registered in the registry. Those who register have the help of a team of psychologists from the CAS.

The three provinces will cross-reference their databases with the companies that manage the venues, so that the admission control detects those registered wherever they are. The project also wants to take this blocking to legal online gambling platforms.

A Guide for Parents and Teachers

The CAS will present a guide for parents and teachers in the coming weeks. According to Medina, it is already drafted and has been reviewed by a commission. It will include warning signs, gambling risks, prevention guidelines, what to do when a case is detected and where to ask for advice and treatment. "When the problem has already occurred, we are already late," he said.

The president of the CAS also gave data from surveys carried out among the provinces on how minors get to online betting. 91% of the responses point to two ways: friends and classmates, first, and social networks and influencers, later. Far behind are television, advertising on shirts and clubs and betting on sporting events.

Medina insisted on not confusing legal operators with clandestine websites, because the former are subject to controls to prevent minors from gambling. "In the online world, where everything is easily accessible, it is a place where these sites flourish," he said.