San Juan signs off on online gambling rules with biometrics, geolocation and a five-license cap

Argentina’s San Juan province is one publication away from a fully operational online gambling framework. For PSPs and operators, the useful part is not the headline number alone: the rules tie access to provincial authorization, require .bet.ar domains, and bake in biometric and geolocation controls.

1. Juan Pablo Medina, president of the Caja de Acción Social (CAS), said the governor has already signed the regulation for the Law on the Regulation of Online Games of Chance. The rules will enter into force once they are published in the official bulletin.
2. The signing ends a process that lasted more than seven months after the law was passed in December 2024. Medina described it as one of the most complex technology and control challenges the regulator has taken on in recent years.
3. CAS, which will be responsible for enforcing the rules, drafted the framework for the future regulated market. Medina said the work involved resolving a significant number of technical issues around digital controls, identity verification, and the infrastructure needed to supervise a market that had operated completely outside state oversight until now.
4. The regulation allows for up to five online gambling licenses in San Juan. Those licenses must come through tender processes or agreements with other jurisdictions, but always within that maximum limit.
5. Operators will also have to use the .bet.ar domain, and the licenses are explicitly provincial. That means operators licensed in other Argentine jurisdictions cannot offer services in San Juan unless they obtain local authorization.
6. The control model combines geolocation and biometrics. Geolocation is meant to verify whether a user is physically inside provincial territory, and the platform can block access if the user does not have the proper authorization even if the account has already been created.

For high-risk payment teams, the practical signal is straightforward: San Juan is not creating a free-for-all market. It is setting up a tightly bounded provincial regime with local licensing, territorial controls, and explicit identity checks, which usually matters as much to acquirers and PSPs as it does to operators.