IPLyC lays out criteria for Buenos Aires licensing

The Argentine Provinces Board for Lotteries and Casinos (IPLyC), the organisation charged with regulating and monitoring Buenos Aires’ soon to be regulated online gambling marketplace, has published its ‘criteria for competition’ related to securing one-of-seven BA licenses.

The board confirms that it has set a deadline of Tuesday 25 June 2019 for competing parties to submit official BA tenders, with IPLyC disclosing that ‘19 companies have pre-registered applicant interest‘.

In its update, the IPLyC confirms that the Buenos Aires Executive has granted the organisation power on ‘issuing applications’ for BA’s new online gambling framework.

Outlining ‘basic requirements’ for applicants, IPLyC details that ‘national public or private enterprises’ must show ‘demonstrable experience’ in running gambling businesses and maintain ‘qualifying earnings’ of ARG $250 million ($5 million) corresponding to 2018 trading.

Foreign operators will be allowed to apply for BA licensing, but are required to maintain a ‘physical business presence’ within the province, with the IPLyC demanding that international incumbents ‘operate at least one international online gaming license’.

To qualify for tender submission, international operators must maintain a ‘demonstrable net worth’ of US $100 million as of 31 December 2018.

Supporting its framework, IPLyC informs that licensing will be required for enterprises seeking to service BA online gambling incumbents, including platform providers, games developers, software providers and marketing firms.

As lead regulator, IPLyC will evaluate the ‘desired criteria’ of applicants, guided by a ‘technical evaluation framework’ which will undertake a review of the following key applicant areas:

• Number of licenses and accreditations of the applicant parties
• Applicant experience and reputation of running online gambling businesses
• Financial evaluation with regards to earnings and payments to regulatory authorities
• Analysis of applicant’s BA products, services and operations.
• Review of applicants technical systems for servicing BA consumers

All seven BA licences are set for a ‘non-extendable’ 15-year period, with IPLyC charging all applicants ARG $5 million ($120,000) for the ‘right to participate’ in the BA online tender.

Once sanctioned, winning BA applicants will by a further ‘single fixed charge’ of ARG $ 65,000,000 (approximately $ 1.4 million) to operate their licenses.

With regards to tax, IPLyC maintains BA’s ‘revised  plan‘, which will see licensed operators pay a combined 25% of their proceeds to the Province’s tax authority, split as a 15% charge on online gambling revenues, with a further 8% as a tax levied according to each specific activity and 2% as a license fee