Before Pope Leo XIV’s visit, pressure builds on Argentina’s Senate to stop the online gambling bill from expiring

The bill to prevent gambling addiction has already cleared the Chamber of Deputies, but the Senate has not taken it up. If lawmakers do nothing before November 30, the proposal loses parliamentary status and the whole process resets — exactly the kind of legislative stall that matters for operators, advertisers, and PSPs exposed to Argentina’s online gambling market.

1. The prevention bill passed the Chamber of Deputies in November 2024, but the Senate majority froze it because it considered the text too restrictive. The objections were familiar ones: limits on commercial freedom, private advertising, and provincial authority over gambling.
2. In May this year, Javier Milei sent the government’s own draft on the same issue, but that still did not guarantee the Senate would open debate. On paper that sounds like movement; in practice, it has not changed the calendar.
3. The Comisión Episcopal de Pastoral Social (CEPAS) launched a petition on Change.org pushing the Senate to approve the bill before it expires. Their text says: “We ask the Senate to urgently approve the bill that regulates online betting and bans its advertising, before it loses parliamentary status. No one is saved alone. This problem is not a future threat: it is already causing harm to thousands of children and families.”
4. CEPAS is backing the petition with reports from Unicef, the Red Cross, UCA and Consejo Publicitario Argentino. The figures cited are stark: Unicef says 24% of adolescents aged 12 to 17 have bet online at some point, and more than 60% of those aged 9 to 17 know someone who has. The Red Cross says three out of four heard about betting through advertising, 79% of bettors acknowledge addiction risks, and 1 in 8 fell into debt.
5. At the last Senate session, Peronist senator Lucía Corpacci from Catamarca moved for preferential treatment so the bill could be debated as soon as possible. The full chamber backed the motion by a show of hands, but the committee plenary still has not been convened. The committees are chaired by three libertarians: Ivanna Arrascaeta, Nadia Márquez and Gonzalo Guzmán Coraita.

Corpacci also called for extending ordinary sessions or for the Executive to include the bill in the agenda for extraordinary sessions. The dispute now is not philosophical; it is procedural. If the Senate keeps the bill parked until November 30, Argentina’s online gambling rules stay where they are, and everyone from operators to payment processors keeps working under the same unresolved framework.