Provincia de Buenos Aires: Ferraresi proposes blocking online betting apps on mobile phones

Jorge Ferraresi said he wants online betting apps removed from mobile platforms, with the goal of cutting off teenagers’ access to digital gambling. For PSPs and operators active in high-risk, the detail that matters is simple: this is a provincial-level proposal aimed squarely at mobile access, not a broad abstract debate about “gambling” in general.

1. Ferraresi made the proposal during a meeting with young people in Chivilcoy. He said the Province of Buenos Aires could push a measure that would specifically prevent betting apps and sites from being accessible on teenagers’ cellphones.
2. The stated objective is to limit adolescents’ access to online gambling and reduce its economic and social consequences. In his framing, the issue is not only bets themselves, but the speed and ease of access from mobile devices.
3. Students at the event described debt problems linked to betting. According to their accounts, some young people lose in minutes the equivalent of several days of work, while others use money requested from their parents for food to place bets.
4. One participant said many teenagers place bets “inside the school, in the classroom,” and warned that getting out of debt is difficult once the cycle starts. That is the operational reality regulators keep circling back to: access, repetition, and debt formation happen on the same device.
5. Ferraresi also linked online betting to mental health and said his government platform includes a school-based mental health program. He added that indebtedness also affects older adults, saying some have taken on debts they cannot later cover.

The broader policy backdrop in Argentina is already moving in the same direction: online betting regulation and prevention of adolescent gambling have become recurring legislative and public-policy topics. For payment providers, that means more pressure around mobile onboarding, age-gating, and the practical question of how much access control a province can try to impose at the platform level.