"We hope to see Buenos Aires City’s first online gaming operations in January 2021"

"In the City, we are moving forward: there are twelve companies that have already paid the relevant administrative fees to participate in the process to obtain an online gaming permit," Vivot said during SAGSE Talks.

As regards the exact launch date, we at the technical team hope that "we will finish the last details by the end of the year and the online platforms will go live in January."

"Among those twelve applicants, three or four are clearly more advanced than the rest because they began the process earlier and some of them are even working on the implementation plan for the platform. However, although our technical team is working tirelessly to accelerate this process, these types of launches are very dependent on political decisions. That said, I believe the first platforms will go live within the first quarter of 2021, ideally, by January."

As for the operating model, strictly speaking, companies will operate under “permits” instead of licenses: "Under the Buenos Aires City Constitution, the monopoly for the exploitation of gambling is reserved to the state. So, the Buenos Aires City Lottery (LOTBA, per Spanish acronym) on behalf of the state, is actually granting online permits and not licenses, which are granted under bidding processes in other Argentine provinces."

"The process has been a success: there are local and international companies that have applied for a permit, joint ventures between local and foreign operators, and even joint ventures between local companies. This combination will bring about different sizes, different player,s and we are very happy with that."

Vivot also discussed the participation of LOTBA’s lotteries in the process. "Besides this process, we are also working on the implementation of our own online lottery. We want to offer LOTBA’s lottery games online. In this case, there won’t be a third party operating our platforms but instead, they will be fully run by the state, through LOTBA."