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🇦🇷 Argentina · Lotería de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires and Instituto Provincial de Lotería y Casinos (LOTBA and IPLyC)

Argentina Online Gambling Licence — 2026

Twenty-four separate regulators, no federal licence, and the two markets worth having are both shut to new applicants. Argentina is an acquisition market, not an application market.

Tier 3 — Emerging / recently liberalised

Facts on this page verified 17 September 2026 against primary sources.

Argentina has no federal online gambling licence and has never had one. Gambling is a power the provinces did not delegate to the federation, which leaves twenty-four separate licensing authorities: the twenty-three provinces, and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, which is not a province. That last distinction is the one most comparison pages get wrong, and getting it wrong obscures the reason the City and Buenos Aires Province are two different regulators running two different regimes over two adjacent populations.

The more consequential point is that neither of those two regimes is taking applications. Buenos Aires Province was capped at seven online licences by Ley 15.079 and Decreto 181/19, and the seventh was awarded at the end of 2020. The City stopped accepting applications on 24 June 2024 and suspended the agreements then pending. Eleven operators hold City authorisations and seven hold provincial ones. An operator that wants either market is looking at a transaction with one of those eighteen, not at a filing.

Quick facts

RegulatorLotería de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires and Instituto Provincial de Lotería y Casinos ↗
TierTier 3 — Emerging / recently liberalised
Licence typesAutorización de agencia de juego en línea — Ciudad de Buenos Aires (LOTBA), Licencia de juego online — Provincia de Buenos Aires (IPLyC), Separate regimes in the remaining 22 jurisdictions
Application costNo open application in either Buenos Aires market; entry is a transaction with an incumbent
Annual costProvincial charges vary by jurisdiction and we could not source them from primary law
Gaming taxFederal 2.5-15% on player deposits, plus provincial charges that vary by jurisdiction
Corporate tax35% federal corporate income tax
SubstanceBuenos Aires Province required bidders to present as a Unión Transitoria de Empresas with an Argentine company; the City framework admitted foreign companies
TimelineNot applicable — the two largest jurisdictions stopped granting licences in 2020 and 2024

Verified facts — fees, tax, capital, market access

Regime: Active · Last verified 17 September 2026 · Next review 16 December 2026 · 4 claims: 2 officially verified, 2 corroborated, 0 estimates. Each row opens its sources.

Calculate my scenario → Compare with the other canonical licences

Taxes and levies

ChargeBaseRatePaidEvidence
point of consumptionFederal impuesto indirecto sobre apuestas online (Ley 27.346 as amended by Ley 27.591; Decreto 293/2022 art. 4). Base is the valor neto del depósito, grossed up as deposit x rate / (1 + rate). Rate shown is the 5% tier for a registered Argentine-resident operator; the tiers run 2.5%, 5%, 7.5%, 10% and 15% by residency and registration, not by product DEPOSITS 5% of DEPOSITS monthly
Officially verified

The federal indirect tax on online betting is charged on deposits, not on stakes and not on gross gaming revenue. Art. 4 of Decreto 293/2022 defines the base as the valor neto del depósito, the peso value of what the player pays into the gaming account, and the tax is grossed up from it by the formula deposit x rate / (1 + rate). It therefore falls due when money is loaded, before any bet is placed or settled, and an operator owes it on deposits that are never staked.

Effective from 2 June 2022

Routinely described as a tax on stakes or on turnover. Both are wrong, and the difference is not cosmetic: the base moves with deposit volume and player churn rather than with betting activity or with hold.
player prize taxResolución IPLyC 1149/26, in force 9 September 2026: 2% withheld on prizes from online slots and other immediate-resolution games, jackpots included and the original wager excluded. Does not apply to sports betting. The enabling ceiling permits a band of 1% to 3% NET-PRIZE 2% of NET-PRIZE variable
Corroborated

Since 9 September 2026 Buenos Aires Province withholds 2% on prizes from online slots and other immediate-resolution games, under Resolución IPLyC 1149/26. The base is the prize, both ordinary payouts and progressive jackpots, and the levy expressly excludes the original wager. It is not a gaming revenue tax and it does not touch sports betting. The seven licensees withhold it and file weekly, and the legal ceiling behind it allows a band of 1% to 3%, so the rate can move without new legislation.

Effective from 9 September 2026

Four independent outlets converge on the resolution number, date, rate, base and mechanism, but the resolution text was not retrieved from a government domain, so this is corroborated. Frequently summarised as a 2% tax on online gambling, which would be a different and much larger charge.

Locked or required capital — not a fee

No capital, guarantee or bond requirement is recorded in the registry for this jurisdiction.

Capital that must be held is shown here so it is never mixed into fee totals; the cost calculator treats it as locked capital.

Market access — where this licence does and does not reach

Holding this licence does not create a right to take players in every country. Check the rules of the player's country. Rows without an evidence-backed rule say "Needs legal review" rather than assuming access.

Player marketStatusBasisEvidence
Great Britain Local licence required Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014: point-of-consumption licensing by the UKGC.
Officially verified

An Argentine provincial licence gives no access to Great Britain. Under the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014 any operator transacting with British customers needs a Gambling Commission licence.
United StatesNeeds legal reviewNo evidence-backed rule in the registry for Autorización de agencia de juego en línea, Ciudad de Buenos Aires (LOTBA) and United States.—
CanadaNeeds legal reviewNo evidence-backed rule in the registry for Autorización de agencia de juego en línea, Ciudad de Buenos Aires (LOTBA) and Canada.—
BrazilNeeds legal reviewNo evidence-backed rule in the registry for Autorización de agencia de juego en línea, Ciudad de Buenos Aires (LOTBA) and Brazil.—
EU / EEANeeds legal reviewNo evidence-backed rule in the registry for Autorización de agencia de juego en línea, Ciudad de Buenos Aires (LOTBA) and EU / EEA.—
Latin AmericaNeeds legal reviewNo evidence-backed rule in the registry for Autorización de agencia de juego en línea, Ciudad de Buenos Aires (LOTBA) and Latin America.—
AsiaNeeds legal reviewNo evidence-backed rule in the registry for Autorización de agencia de juego en línea, Ciudad de Buenos Aires (LOTBA) and Asia.—
AfricaNeeds legal reviewNo evidence-backed rule in the registry for Autorización de agencia de juego en línea, Ciudad de Buenos Aires (LOTBA) and Africa.—

Process and timeline

  1. pre applicationApplications closed on 24 June 2024

    The City stopped accepting new applications and suspended those then pending. The eleven authorised operators remain live, each under its own Disposición, and the most recent grant the register records is the Betano authorisation of 2024.

    Corroborated

    The two jurisdictions that matter commercially are both shut to new applicants. Buenos Aires Province is capped at seven online licences by Ley 15.079 and Decreto 181/19, and all seven were awarded by the end of 2020. The City of Buenos Aires stopped accepting new applications on 24 June 2024 and suspended the agreements then pending. Neither has reopened. An operator can therefore buy, partner into or inherit access to these markets, but cannot apply for it.

    The seven-licence cap and its legal basis are stated by the Province regulator itself. The City closure is reported consistently by several outlets as to date and substance, but none cites the instrument number and no resolution closing the register was found on a government domain, so this is corroborated rather than verified.

  2. go liveFederal tax attaches on deposit, whatever the province decides

    The federal indirect tax is owed on the net value of player deposits from the moment money is loaded, at a rate set by the operator’s residency and registration rather than by its product mix or its margin.

    Officially verified

    The federal indirect tax on online betting is charged on deposits, not on stakes and not on gross gaming revenue. Art. 4 of Decreto 293/2022 defines the base as the valor neto del depósito, the peso value of what the player pays into the gaming account, and the tax is grossed up from it by the formula deposit x rate / (1 + rate). It therefore falls due when money is loaded, before any bet is placed or settled, and an operator owes it on deposits that are never staked.

    Routinely described as a tax on stakes or on turnover. Both are wrong, and the difference is not cosmetic: the base moves with deposit volume and player churn rather than with betting activity or with hold.

Sources and change log

Primary sources (statute, regulator, ministry, tax authority) are listed first. Superseded figures are kept, not deleted.

Spot an error? Submit a correction — every change is versioned with its source and effective date.

Pros

  • Large Spanish-language market with an established regulated field
  • Both principal regulators publish their operator lists and their normative instruments
  • Buenos Aires Province publishes the laboratories it accepts, so certification requirements are knowable in advance

Cons

  • No route to a licence in either Buenos Aires jurisdiction
  • Federal tax attaches to deposits rather than revenue, so it is owed on money that is never staked
  • Provincial fee and tax figures are not published in a form we could verify against primary law
  • Peso volatility makes any historical fee figure unusable as a guide

Best for

  • Operators acquiring or partnering into an existing licensee
  • Groups already holding an Argentine provincial licence and extending to a second jurisdiction
  • Suppliers certified by a laboratory the provinces recognise

Twenty-four jurisdictions, and no way to cover them at once

A licence from one Argentine jurisdiction authorises play by residents of that jurisdiction and confers nothing in the other twenty-three. Both principal regulators enforce this at the domain level: legal sites sit on .bet.ar, and an operator holding both a City and a provincial licence runs two separate authorised properties. Estimates of how many of the twenty-four currently license online gambling range from fifteen to twenty across the pages that publish a figure, none of them dated. The best number available is roughly twenty regulated and operational as at May 2025, with San Juan in process and Salta, Santiago del Estero and Tierra del Fuego outside the regime. That figure comes from the industry association ALEA by way of trade press, not from any government tally, and it was sixteen months old when this page was last reviewed. We publish it as an approximation because no better one exists, not because it is reliable.

The federal tax is charged on deposits, not on stakes and not on revenue

Art. 4 of Decreto 293/2022 defines the base of the federal indirect tax as the valor neto del depósito — the peso value of what a player pays into the gaming account — and the tax is grossed up from that figure by the formula deposit multiplied by the rate, divided by one plus the rate. It is therefore owed from the moment money is loaded, before any bet is placed, and it is owed on deposits a player never stakes. Descriptions of it as a turnover tax or a tax on stakes are common and are wrong in a way that matters: the base moves with deposit volume and player churn rather than with betting activity or with hold, so a bonus-heavy acquisition push raises the bill without raising revenue. The rate is tiered by residency and registration rather than by product or size: 2.5% for a registered Argentine-resident operator meeting the investment and employment test, 5% for a registered Argentine resident generally, 7.5% for an unregistered Argentine organiser, 10% for a foreign operator working through an Argentine intermediary, and 15% for a foreign operator in a non-cooperative or low-tax jurisdiction. Six times the rate, decided by where the entity sits.

What the Buenos Aires Province register actually shows

The Province still publishes the register of aspirant licensees from the round it ran, and it is more informative than anything written about that round since. Sixteen consortia registered for seven slots. Almost every one pairs an Argentine land-based gambling company with an international platform: Casino de Victoria with Betsson Malta Holding, Boldt with Cassava Enterprises, Iberargen with Codere Latam, Bingo Pilar with PPB Counter Party Services, ArgenBingo with William Hill, BinBaires with Intralot, Atlántica de Juegos with Stars Interactive. That pattern was not commercial preference. The tender required bidders to present as a Unión Transitoria de Empresas, so the Argentine partner was the entry ticket. The same page names the four laboratories the Province will accept for certifying gaming systems — Gaming Laboratories International, BMM International, eCOGRA and Gaming Associates Europe — under Resolución 220/2019 with the registry reopened by Resolución 932/2021. A certificate from anyone else does not satisfy the Province.

The 2% prize levy, and what it is not

Since 9 September 2026 Buenos Aires Province withholds 2% on prizes from online slots and other immediate-resolution games, under Resolución IPLyC 1149/26. The base is the prize, ordinary payouts and progressive jackpots alike, and the original wager is expressly excluded. It does not reach sports betting and it is not a tax on gaming revenue, which is how it has been summarised in several places; a 2% charge on revenue would be a far smaller sum than 2% on everything paid out. The seven licensees withhold it and file weekly. The enabling ceiling permits a band of 1% to 3%, so the rate can move without new legislation — which is the part worth watching rather than the current figure.

What we could not establish

The provincial charges are the weakest part of the record and we have not filled the gap with an estimate. Secondary sources describe the City as a 7% canon plus 6% turnover tax and the Province as 15% turnover tax plus a 10% canon calculated on profit, while other sources flatten both into single GGR percentages that do not reconcile with either. We could not settle this against the Código Fiscal or the Ley Fiscal e Impositiva, so no provincial rate appears in our tax table. Nor could we find the instrument that closed the City register in June 2024: the date and the substance are reported consistently, the resolution number is not. For the twenty-two jurisdictions outside greater Buenos Aires we have regulator names and little else, and Tucumán is a live contradiction — the association count treats it as regulated and operational while the provincial savings bank has publicly denied offering online betting. The figures circulating for a City application, USD 30,000 administrative fee and USD 100,000 annually against a USD 2,000,000 guarantee, come from a single law-firm summary of a 2020 board resolution governing a round that is now closed. We record them as unverified and keep them out of the fee table, because a fee table reads as a price and under a closed round there is no price.

Application process

  1. Establish that the target jurisdiction is actually granting licences — in the City of Buenos Aires and Buenos Aires Province, it is not
  2. For either Buenos Aires market, identify an incumbent to acquire or partner with: eleven hold City authorisations, seven hold provincial ones
  3. Structure the Argentine vehicle — the Province required a Unión Transitoria de Empresas with a local company, and its published register shows every serious bidder doing exactly that
  4. Certify the gaming system with a laboratory the target jurisdiction recognises (GLI, BMM, eCOGRA or Gaming Associates Europe for Buenos Aires Province)
  5. Register federally for the indirect tax before launch: registration status alone moves the rate between 5% and 7.5%, and residency moves it to 10% or 15%
  6. Budget the federal tax against projected deposits rather than projected revenue, since that is the base the decree sets

Operational realities

Capital requirements

No current capital or guarantee figure is published by either Buenos Aires regulator in a form we could verify. The USD 2,000,000 guarantee cited for the City comes from a law-firm summary of the closed 2020 round and is recorded as unverified.

Player protection

Both Buenos Aires regulators run self-exclusion programmes and publish their authorised-operator lists so players can check a site, which is the mechanism the .bet.ar requirement exists to support. Provisions in the other jurisdictions vary and we have not surveyed them.

Banking & payment processing

Exchange controls and peso volatility dominate the operational picture. We have not verified which banks serve licensed operators and do not publish a list.

B2B vs B2C licensing

Both Buenos Aires frameworks license the B2C operator. Suppliers are reached through the certification regime rather than a separate licence: Buenos Aires Province publishes the laboratories whose certification it accepts.

How it compares

Versus Brazil: Brazil banned fixed-odds betting outright on 25 September 2026 (Provisional Measure 1,394), so both of the region's two largest markets are now shut to a new applicant, Brazil by statute and Argentina's two main jurisdictions by policy. Versus Mexico: both are markets where the licence exists but cannot be obtained, and in both the practical route is a transaction with a permit holder. Versus Peru and Colombia: single national regimes accepting applications, which is what Argentina does not have.

Frequently asked questions

Can an operator still apply for a Buenos Aires licence?

No, in either Buenos Aires jurisdiction. The Province was capped at seven licences by Ley 15.079 and Decreto 181/19 and awarded the last of them at the end of 2020. The City stopped accepting applications on 24 June 2024 and suspended those then pending. Neither has reopened.

Does Argentina have a federal online gambling licence?

No. The provinces never delegated gambling to the federation, so licensing sits with twenty-four separate authorities. Federal law reaches online gambling through tax and criminal law only. Two bills pending in Congress would raise criminal penalties and restrict advertising; neither would create a national licence.

How many provinces regulate online gambling in Argentina?

Argentina has twenty-three provinces plus the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, which is not a province — twenty-four jurisdictions in total. Roughly twenty had online gambling regulated and operational as at May 2025 on the industry association's count, which is the only count available and is not a government figure.

Is the federal tax charged on turnover?

No. Decreto 293/2022 art. 4 sets the base as the net value of player deposits. The tax attaches when money is loaded into the account, which means it is owed on deposits that are never staked, and the liability tracks deposit volume rather than betting activity or margin.

Further reading on Argentina

Compare and define

Other Tier 3 jurisdictions

Brazil SPA
Chile SCJ
Peru MINCETUR
Colombia Coljuegos