Argentina's legal online gambling market is barely five years old, dating to the December 2020 launch of licensed betting in the City of Buenos Aires. But the people who control most of the physical infrastructure behind it, and much of the political capital that gets new licenses approved, built their fortunes decades earlier in bingo halls and provincial casinos.
The country's online expansion has not entirely created a new generation of gaming power brokers. In many cases, it has extended the reach of operators and business groups that were already established in the land-based market.
Boldt and the Tabanelli family's longstanding gambling empire
The clearest case is the Tabanelli family, owners of Grupo Boldt. Antonio Ángel Tabanelli founded the company in the 1960s as a printing business specializing in secure documents such as banknotes, checks and lottery tickets. That printing relationship with provincial lottery agencies gave Boldt an entry point into gaming administration, and by the 1990s the company had moved into slot machines and casino operation.
Boldt now controls the Trilenium casino in Tigre, along with gaming operations in Santa Fe and on the Atlantic coast, and has a major presence in the slot-machine market in Buenos Aires province. In 2026, Boldt secured 20-year concessions to operate the slot machines at the Hermitage in Mar del Plata and the casinos in Tandil and Miramar.
Its online arm, Bplay has expanded beyond Argentina, with operations and partnerships across Latin America. Antonio Ángel Tabanelli transferred his shares to his children Antonio Eduardo and Rosana Beatriz in 2022, formalizing a succession that was already underway informally, and died in June 2025 at 90. In August 2026, Antonio Eduardo agreed to acquire his sister's stake, a deal that would give him about 92% of Boldt if completed.
Mautone and Angelici: Two different paths for Argentina's old guard
Any look at Argentina's biggest gambling entrepreneurs has to include Daniel Mautone. He started opening bingos in Entre Ríos in the 1980s and now presides over Casino Victoria, where his stake in gross gaming revenue reportedly reaches around 70%.
He also controls Casino Maipú in Mendoza and a network of bingos across Buenos Aires province's coastal towns, including San Clemente, Santa Teresita and Pinamar. Recently, Mautone also moved into the Casino de Necochea project, with Casino Victoria partnering with businessman Oscar Merlo, who acquired the former Casino Complex in a provincial auction.
Online, his group partners with Betsson, which holds a provincial online gaming license in partnership with Casino de Victoria. Mautone has cultivated political relationships since Casino Victoria opened in 2003 under then-president Eduardo Duhalde's home province, and more recently his name surfaced in the federal investigation into former Buenos Aires cabinet chief Martín Insaurralde, which found Mautone had financed some of Insaurralde's travel.
Another major name from Argentina's gambling industry is Daniel Angelici, the former Boca Juniors president known as "El Tano." His business interests have long included casinos and bingo halls, although his position in the sector has evolved over time.
For operators, suppliers and regulators, the practical implication is that Argentina's provincial licensing system continues to give established operators with existing land-based concessions a significant advantage as the online market develops
In a 2022 interview with La Nación, he said he did not want his children to inherit his gaming companies and described plans to diversify into wine, restaurants, brokerage firms, real estate and an internet business.
Mautone and Angelici are also long-standing business associates and have both held leadership positions at the Cámara Argentina de Salas de Bingo y Anexos (CASBA), the industry association representing bingo operators in Buenos Aires province.
The Tabanelli family operates on a more separate track, with a corporate structure and international footprint that gives Boldt less dependence on any single political relationship, though Antonio Ángel Tabanelli had his own high-profile political conflict, a 2012 dispute with then VP Amado Boudou over the Ciccone printing plant.
Who will shape the next generation of gambling power?
That pattern, land-based gaming wealth intersecting with provincial and national politics, runs through much of Argentina's gambling industry, even though the specific alliances differ.
But the old guard is not the only model emerging from Argentina's expansion. Federico de Achával, majority owner of the Hipódromo Argentino de Palermo, represents a more explicitly online-oriented approach. His BetWarrior platform has become the official betting sponsor of the Argentinian national football team and other federations since 2022.
De Achával's roots are also land-based, through the Palermo racetrack, but his expansion has been online-first, and BetWarrior's national sponsorship deals give him a visibility the older land-based operators have not sought.
While Boldt and Mautone have extended established land-based operations into online gambling, De Achával has used a major physical gaming asset as a platform for a more digital-focused expansion. Angelici, meanwhile, represents a third trajectory: an established land-based operator who has publicly signaled an intention to leave the sector.
For operators, suppliers and regulators, the practical implication is that Argentina's provincial licensing system continues to give established operators with existing land-based concessions a significant advantage as the online market develops.
The recent tenders showed that this advantage is not shared equally even among the established players. Casino Victoria offered 62% of the monthly profitability from the Hermitage's slot machines but still lost the tender to Boldt, which offered 58%. Boldt's new 20-year contract keeps it in control of the slot-machine operations at the three casinos through 2046.
At the same time, Angelici's stated plan to sell his stakes in bingos and casinos raises a different question: who eventually takes over his share of the market? The answer could come from another established operator such as Mautone or Boldt, or from a newer player with no traditional land-based footprint.
That transition, rather than the arrival of any single new online license, could determine whether Argentina's gambling industry produces a genuinely new power broker over the next decade.