Argentina is facing a youth gambling crisis – Buenos Aires Herald

Buenos Aires Herald editorial 

A quiet crisis is taking hold, and it’s flying below the radar of international observers. In bedrooms and schoolyards across Argentina, masses of young people are developing destructive online gambling addictions. 

The Herald has heard of teenagers whose entire classes are addicted. Families are losing their cars because of debts their children have racked up. Telling their stories is difficult because many won’t speak to the press — both out of a sense of shame and because many of the afflicted are minors.

This crisis has hit at a time when young people are as vulnerable as they could possibly be. The majority of Argentines live in poverty, not only because adults are out of work but because inflation, deregulation, and savage formal and informal “liquidizer” pay stagnation policies have pushed many workers below the breadline. According to official statistics, 2 out of 3 people under 14 live below the poverty line. 

The crunch has gone hand-in-hand with a government whose hyper-individualist, pro-market discourse argues we all hold personal responsibility for our economic lot, everyone should be trading on the side nowadays, and the main problem so far has been the bloated, controlling state. 

Trading and finance are a necessary part of a vibrant economy — but it has become clear that many people being conned into crypto Ponzi schemes and the like do not understand enough about how the system works to know when they’re being scammed.

Provincial governments started to allow online gambling companies to operate since at least 2021. Some are based abroad in countries such as Malta, often partnering with local casinos to get the licenses they need. These sites are covered in legal terms because, supposedly, you have to be 18 to use them, and consenting adults can gamble if they like. But when have internet age controls ever worked?

Some local governments, such as Buenos Aires City, have launched awareness campaigns, blocked some illegal gambling sites, and similar initiatives. Yet, we need stronger regulation. And although most parties have bills aimed at dealing with the issues, the political will to legislate appears to be lacking: as the provinces are starved of funds, this business brings in big bucks — the Cenital news website calculated online gambling moved around US$4.5 billion this year. Lack of federal funding has created a vacuum, and vacuums have a way of getting filled somehow.

These points, of course, apply to the legal outfits. When it comes to the unregistered illegal ones, it’s a Wild West out there.

In the face of this problem, Argentina’s movers and shakers haven’t exactly used their influence for good. Sports stars, influencers, and others who could be role models have endorsed betting websites in advertisements. The country’s top two football teams even have online gambling platforms as sponsors on their jerseys. Gambling is as old as the hills, but now it’s become massive and accessible through your cellphone, right at the edge of your fingers.

This crisis feels like an extension of the libertarian logic of turning all realms of human interaction into a market. Some teachers have told the Herald that children in their class now charge classmates who ask to borrow their rulers. But the process of applying market logic to a new facet of human life can corrupt its essential nature, as U.S. philosopher Michael Sandel has argued. 

The online gambling crisis is preying on impoverished youth who desperately and mistakenly see it as a path out of their economic ruin. Far too many are learning the hard way that the house always wins.