The Lotería de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, known as LOTBA, has expanded a series of training workshops targeted directly at individuals who have been prosecuted under Article 301 bis of Argentina’s Criminal Code the provision dedicated specifically to gambling-related crimes. The sessions are being held as part of probation agreements reached with FEJA, the specialised prosecutor’s office for illegal gambling activities in Buenos Aires, with the initiative implemented in coordination with LOTBA’s Legal Secretariat.
The mechanics of the programme are rooted in the judicial system. When individuals charged with illegal gambling offences enter into suspended trial agreements with prosecutors, behavioural requirements can be attached as conditions of that arrangement. Attending LOTBA’s training workshops is one such requirement. Rather than simply funnelling offenders through the courts and back into the same environment, the programme introduces a structured educational component designed to break the cycle at its source.
In the sessions themselves, participants receive information on the criminal, economic and social consequences of running illegal gambling operations. They are also taken through how Argentina’s regulated gaming framework actually works — the licencing requirements, the compliance standards, the protections offered to players, and the consequences of operating outside those boundaries. The goal, as LOTBA has made clear, is not merely to tick a judicial box but to genuinely shift how participants understand the industry they were previously operating in illegally.
Ezequiel Domínguez, who led the training alongside representatives from LOTBA Gaming, summed up the dual purpose clearly. The sessions fulfil a judicial obligation on one hand, while on the other they generate genuine awareness about the implications of illegal gambling and the importance of working within regulated environments. That framing matters — it positions the programme as a rehabilitation tool, not just a compliance exercise.
The expansion of this initiative is part of a broader and increasingly active enforcement strategy LOTBA has been building over the past two years. The regulator has filed more than a hundred lawsuits against social media influencers and public figures who promoted unlicensed betting platforms, with some of those individuals also required to complete training sessions as part of their own judicial agreements — and in some cases, to post awareness-raising videos on their social media channels. More than 300 police cadets have been trained on detecting clandestine betting operations. Over 2,300 illegal gambling websites have been blocked across Buenos Aires, including nearly 1,700 on the city’s public WiFi network. Close to 400 awareness workshops have reached more than 50,000 people across the city.
LOTBA’s partnership with FEJA has become one of the defining features of this enforcement approach, creating a direct operational link between regulatory expertise and prosecutorial power. By embedding education into the judicial process itself, the two bodies have created a mechanism that does more than punish it redirects. Former cashiers from illegal gambling rings, influencers who promoted unlicensed sites and others caught up in the illegal market are now sitting in LOTBA sessions learning why regulation exists and what it protects.
For the broader Latin American iGaming market, Buenos Aires is demonstrating that enforcement alone is rarely enough to shift deeply embedded illegal gambling ecosystems. The combination of prosecution, education and judicial partnership being built by LOTBA offers a model worth watching one that treats illegal gambling not just as a crime to be punished, but as a behaviour to be understood and redirected.
