On Wednesday, the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Buenos Aires, Martin Lapadú, ordered the suspension of the Miljugadas.com domain for organizing and promoting gambling to the city’s citizens without local authorization.
Prosecutor Martin Lapadú also ordered the site’s bank accounts frozen and for financial institutions to refrain from processing any transactions on behalf of the site. Lapadú warned internet service providers that failure to block the Miljugadas domain could result in charges for assisting an illegal gambling operator.
Under
Argentine law, illegal gambling operators can face prison sentences of between three
and six years. Miljugadas lists its office address in the province of Misiones,
but Lapadú says he’s yet to identify the site’s directors and representatives.
Miljugadas appears to be taking the development in stride, as the site remains
online at present, and the site’s Twitter feed has yet to acknowledge the
prosecutor’s order. It probably helps that this is not the first time that
Miljugadas has faced the ire of Argentine officials.
Miljugadas
held a license issued in Misiones but this was revoked by the Provincial
Institute of Lotteries and Casinos (IPLyC) in November 2012 for "breaches of
contract,” including the site’s alleged failure to maintain a ‘mirror’ server
that allowed IPLyC to monitor all wagers for signs of problem gambling activity.
Meanwhile, national government appears to be making a push to create a
federal agency to regulate Argentina’s gambling market. Fabian Rodriguez Simon,
an advisor to President Mauricio Macri, recently told local media that a
federal regulator would allow each province to decide what type of online
activity would be permissible within its borders.
Source: GMB / Calvinayre.com
