Buenos Aires Province lawmakers will return to work on online-gambling safeguards on 16 September, when the Chamber of Deputies’ Committee on Gambling, Lottery and Prevention of Gambling Addiction considers 27 active measures on youth protection, advertising, access controls and online casino regulation.
The session will be the committee’s second meeting of 2026 and its first expected to address substantive legislative proposals. It follows the committee’s activation in July, when lawmakers said the new body would provide a dedicated forum for consolidating Buenos Aires Province’s fragmented online-betting and gambling-harm agenda.
The committee was created in February and began operating in July. Its sole meeting to date considered two non-binding declarations submitted by the Radical Civic Union (UCR) recognising local problem-gambling-prevention initiatives, and it has not yet issued an opinion on a substantive reform proposal.
The meeting scheduled for 16 September will therefore be the committee’s first significant opportunity to consider the legislative backlog that led to its creation. Lawmakers will examine 27 pending matters, comprising 22 bills, three declarations and two requests for information.
The initiatives were introduced across the provincial political spectrum. Fuerza Patria submitted 10 of the measures, followed by the UCR with six, UCR + Cambio Federal with four, Unión y Libertad with three, the Coalición Cívica with two, and La Libertad Avanza and Derecha Popular with one each.
The agenda includes proposals to develop public-awareness campaigns on gambling-related harm, establish a telephone support line, strengthen training in prevention and treatment, and amend provincial gambling legislation to explicitly cover online casino products.
Other measures concern restrictions on advertising directed at minors, biometric identification checks, controls on virtual wallets used by minors, and prevention initiatives in schools and sports clubs.
The committee will also consider local access-control proposals. One initiative from Castelli municipal council seeks to restrict access to gambling platforms through Wi-Fi networks in schools and public buildings.
The authors of the proposals have been invited to present their measures at the meeting. The committee will seek to identify common elements among the initiatives and may then try to combine compatible provisions into a unified legislative proposal. That remains an objective rather than an agreed outcome, and there is no indication that a consolidated bill will be approved at the meeting.
The committee is chaired by Fuerza Patria deputy Micaela Olivetto, with former Provincial Institute of Lottery and Casinos president Fernando Rovello as vice-president and UCR deputy Diego Garciarena as secretary. Its remit covers the authorisation, regulation, control and supervision of gambling, as well as advertising, sponsorship, prevention and treatment of gambling-related harm.
The renewed discussions come after previous efforts to introduce broader provincial online-gambling legislation failed to produce a comprehensive framework. The 16 September session will indicate whether the committee can move beyond preliminary organisation and begin consolidating the province’s large backlog of gambling-related proposals into a coherent legislative response.