Buenos Aires bans online gambling for child support debtors

The City of Buenos Aires has approved legislation preventing people listed as delinquent child support debtors from maintaining accounts or conducting transactions on authorised online gambling platforms.

The Legislature of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires has approved a new restriction preventing people registered as delinquent child support debtors from using licensed online gambling and betting platforms. The measure was passed on August 27 by 43 votes to 14 and was introduced by legislator Leandro Santoro of Fuerza por Buenos Aires.

The legislation adds new provisions to Law No. 269, which governs the city’s Public Register of Delinquent Child Support Debtors. Anyone appearing in the register will be prohibited from opening a new online gambling account, keeping an existing account active or conducting deposits, bets and withdrawals through platforms authorised in Buenos Aires.

The restriction is broad enough to cover both games of chance and games of skill, as well as other online gambling products administered or regulated by Lotería de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires (LOTBA). It therefore targets access to the city’s regulated online market rather than illegal gambling platforms alone.

Operators will be required to carry out automated, real-time checks against the Public Register before activating an account or allowing transactions. If a customer is subsequently added to the register while maintaining an active gambling account, the operator must suspend the account and notify the relevant authorities.

The law also introduces safeguards around the use of personal information. The city government and LOTBA must create the necessary technical systems for automated checks, but operators will only be permitted to confirm whether a person is included in the register. The information cannot be retained for commercial purposes or used for customer profiling.

Operators that fail to comply with the verification requirements may face sanctions imposed by the city’s gambling regulator under existing disciplinary rules, licence conditions and, where applicable, the Buenos Aires administrative offences framework. The exact operational procedures will still need to be defined through implementing regulations.

Buenos Aires already uses the child support register to impose restrictions in other areas. The city’s register currently includes people who owe two consecutive or three non-consecutive child support payments, following reforms adopted in 2024. In 2026, the city also integrated the register with the Tribuna Segura system to restrict access to football stadiums for registered debtors.

The online gambling measure is intended to reinforce those existing enforcement tools by preventing people with outstanding child support obligations from directing money toward gambling while legally enforceable family payments remain unpaid. The legislation’s supporters framed the restriction primarily as a child-protection and economic-responsibility measure rather than a gambling-control initiative alone.

The law still requires publication and implementation. Once published in the Official Gazette, the Buenos Aires Executive will have 30 days to issue the necessary regulations, including the technical mechanism linking online gambling operators with the debtor register. Until that process is completed, the new restriction should not be treated as fully operational.