Chubut Creates Online Gambling Prevention Plan

Law VIII 148, published in the Official Gazette of Chubut on July 5, 2024, aims to prevent and comprehensively approach the risks associated with online gambling in the educational environment. With this Law, the Province seeks to prevent pathological and addictive gambling, and to avoid the harmful consequences at individual, family, and social levels for elementary and high school students.

The Law prohibits direct or indirect advertising and the promotion by any means of activities or recreational attractions that encourage virtual gambling. For this purpose, it uses information and communication technologies oriented to young people and adolescents.

Likewise, the Institute of Social Assistance of the Province is urged to regulate a Code of Good Practices for responsible advertising of games of chance within the framework of corporate social responsibility. The code must provide for the use of clear and not misleading information, that is socially responsible, that does not encourage compulsive gambling, with minimum age restrictions, and that makes the help for problematic consumption and self-exclusion visible.

The Law also creates the Provincial Plan for the Prevention of Online Gambling in the educational environment, aimed at elementary and high school students of public and private schools, teachers, administrative staff, families, and socio-affective environments. Its goas are:

1. raising awareness among students of the different forms of pathological gambling and the impact it has on people's lives,

2. addressing the problem from a comprehensive perspective, considering the impulse to gamble and the socioeconomic and family conditions of each student,

3. informing the student's family of the situation detected and jointly proposing a road map for potential solutions,

4. drafting a tutoring plan in accordance with the student's specific reality and school career that involves extracurricular support and learning instances,

5. making extracurricular offerings available to the student, for which it will be possible to establish links with other civil society organizations,

6. advising the family to consult specialized health professionals,

7. in case of risk to health and integrity, intervening with agencies for the protection of the rights of children and adolescents.