A great number of public assisted to the conference: “Online Gaming, current situation in the region”, held last October 16th in Puerto Salguero, Ciudad de Buenos Aires, which counted with the presence of operators, software developers and experts in legislation.

Speakers were: Estela Varsavsky (Consultant of 137bet), Federico Fortunati (Director-Manager of Legal Affairs, Codere Argentina), Zacarías Leone (Director | Security Senior Consultant) and Verónica Mora Dubuc (Consultant, Institute of Gambling and Betting of the City of Buenos Aires).

Verónica Mora started speaking about international bibliography about the negative impact of gambling addiction in health. He also mentioned social changes linked to computing technology and the use of Internet, which has diverse uses, for entertainment and also for working purposes. It also produces new problems, such as online gaming addiction.

“Online gaming has characteristics such as anonymity, loss of the time notion, speed, and access to contents”, said Mora. She added that gambling problems are often suffered by vulnerable people, and sometimes are accompanied by anxiety and depression.

Then, she spoke about interviews granted to players by the Institute of Gambling and Betting of the City of Buenos Aires, and added that the task of the institute should be focused on providing information, especially to prevent and change habits.

Then, Federico Fortunati, Codere representative, revised the Law 13063 of the Province of Buenos Aires, which implemented a verification system in real time, in which every machine is connected to the entity of control. “The law has been innovative and has shown a way, that allows more transparency, a growth in collection and an advantage regarding online gaming”.

He then mentioned the joint venture between Codere and William Hill to operate the sports betting system in Spain, which are performed in real places, via giant screens connected to servers. Finally, Fortunati added that he believes that legal conditions are not ready for online betting, yet.

Estela Varsavsky presented statistics on the use of technology in the region. “ Argentina will have 18 million Internet users, 3 million of them connected to broadband Internet”, affirmed, and said that a quarter of Latin American inhabitants are Internet users.

As well as Mora, she said that the use of Internet is a tool for everyday activities, and added that cellular phones may also be used for online gaming. Then, she commented the diverse uses to offer bets: sportsbook centers, where bets are performed in a traditional place, and virtual sites to play poker, horse racing and casinos.

“We cannot keep on avoiding the games of chance issues. The state must start to treat projects to regulate this activity for the bettors of the 21st century”, said Varsavsky, who gave importance to actions related to training, control, regulation and communication.

Finally, Sacarías Leone talked about computing security. He explained two different ways to attack the security system of the companies and named different prevention measures: to develop a Business Continuity Plan with 6 steps: The analysis of the impact on the business, the classification of operations and the analysis of the confidentiality of the information, the development of contingency systems, a training program and, finally, continuous monitoring.