INFLUENCER MARKETING
300,000 fine, for influencers to create paid content promoting online gambling. Germany and the Netherlands have adopted broadly similar legislative approaches 14 . These are meaningful steps, but they are addressed primarily to the content of the advertising rather than to the role of the influencer within the illegal gambling structure. The offense is the promotion; the unlicensed nature of the platform is one element of the analysis, not the structural focus. Argentina's framework is different in emphasis. Article 301 bis does not criminalize the promotion of gambling, it criminalizes the operation of an illegal capture system. When FEJA charges an influencer under that provision, it is not contending that they published unauthorized advertising; it is asserting that they operated a component of a criminal enterprise. That distinction has practical consequences. It places the influencer within the criminal structure rather than outside it, and it opens the door to the kind of systemic, multi-actor investigation (covering platform operators, cashiers, and recruiters simultaneously) that administrative frameworks cannot support. It also, as the reparation agreements demonstrate, creates space for remedies tailored to the specific social harm that was caused. Conclusions The FEJA experience offers several lessons that extend well beyond Argentina. First, specialization in gambling prosecution produces results that generalist enforcement cannot. The
technical sophistication required to investigate digital gambling networks, building criminal cases against distributed multi-actor systems, and developing effective enforcement demands dedicated institutional capacity. Second, the criminal framework – precisely because it is more demanding than administrative regulation – enables more creative and proportionate outcomes. The reparation agreements that emerged from FEJA's influencer investigations are possible only because the criminal process created both the leverage and the procedural vehicle for structured remediation. That is not an argument for using criminal law indiscriminately; it is an argument for having it available. And there is growing empirical evidence that active enforcement correlates with legal market growth rather than impeding it: a September 2025 study found that US states with enforcement actions against illegal gambling operators experienced 10 percent higher year-on-year growth in active legal players and 39 percent higher growth in new accounts compared with states that took no enforcement action 15 . Enforcement investment and market development are not in tension, they reinforce each other. Third, and most importantly, the Argentine experience demonstrates that influencer marketing in illegal gambling is not simply an advertising compliance problem. It is a structural feature of how the illegal market functions, and it deserves to be addressed as such, with tools proportionate to its role. This is precisely what is currently unfolding in the region.
RODRIGO N. BRANCA Principal Legal Officer (Secretario) of the Specialized Gambling Prosecution Unit (Fiscalía Especializada en Juegos de Azar - FEJA), Public Prosecutor's Office of the City of Buenos Aires.
For information contact RBranca@fiscalias.gob.ar
14 Savage, op. cit 15 Miller, op. cit.
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IMGL MAGAZINE | JUNE 2026
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