Argentine Church urges Senate to advance online gambling harm-prevention bill before November deadline

The Episcopal Commission for Social Pastoral Care (CEPAS) has sent a letter to Vice President Victoria Villarruel and all Argentine senators asking them to resume urgent debate on a bill to prevent gambling addiction and regulate online gambling and betting. For PSPs, the useful part is simple: this is another sign that Argentina’s online betting framework is still being pushed from the political and church side at the same time.

1. CEPAS said the bill faces a “concrete risk” of losing parliamentary status next November. If that happens, the text would be archived definitively, even though it already has half-sanction from the Chamber of Deputies.
2. The commission asked lawmakers to reach the necessary agreements and do everything within their power to turn the proposal into law before the deadline expires. The letter was sent to Villarruel, who chairs the Senate, and to the full chamber.
3. The Church says the problem is no longer a future warning but a present reality. In the letter, CEPAS wrote that the damage is visible in “our families, our schools, our clubs and our communities,” which is the kind of language that tends to keep pressure on legislators even when the bill is stalled.
4. This is not a one-off intervention. Since July 2024, Catholic social ministries across Argentina have been speaking out on online betting, starting with the message “Betting is not a game,” aimed at the growth of virtual gambling platforms and their impact on children, adolescents and young people.
5. The pressure escalated through 2024 and 2025: CEPAS formally asked the Chamber of Deputies to treat the bill urgently in November 2024, moved the request to the Senate in February 2025, and in October 2025 the Argentine Episcopal Conference said, on behalf of the country’s bishops, that “gambling addiction is an attack on life.” In that same statement, the bishops warned that without proper regulation and controls, every mobile phone could become a “casino.”

The Senate has the bill after its half-sanction in Deputies, and CEPAS is now trying to keep it from dying in procedural limbo. For operators and payment providers touching Argentina, this is the part to watch: the legislative clock is not abstract, and the political conversation around online betting is clearly not cooling down.