Argentine province plans 10.5% tax on online gambling deposits

Argentina appears to be mirroring the United States’ approach to regulating online gambling, with individual states taking the lead due to federal inaction.

On Monday, Argentine media outlet La Voz quoted Osvaldo Giordano, finance minister in the central province of Córdoba, saying that the provincial government would begin taxing online gambling activity in January 2018. The government plans to include the measure in the Budget Law debate that commences this week.

Giordano said the plan is to impose a 10.5% on customer deposits, with credit card companies acting as the collection agents. The government expects to raise ARS 75m (US $4.3m) from this activity in 2018, which Giordano admits is “not an important amount, but we are going to set a precedent.”

The budget doesn’t make too many exceptions as to what forms of online gambling it plans to tax, specifically mentioning sports betting, slots and pretty much every type of casino table game, going as far as to finish off its list with the word ‘etc.’