In Argentina, the growth of adolescents’ access to illegal betting platforms has become one of the most urgent problems on the digital agenda. Faced with the absence of a uniform federal framework, responses are coming from the provinces. The Lottery of Córdoba has just presented two concrete tools to face this challenge: NoVa+ and Luca, developed with academic support and designed to operate both in the personal environment of young people and in the collective spaces where they socialize.
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Why youth football was the chosen setting in Argentina
The launch did not take place in a conference room or a government office. It took place at Club Atlético Talleres, one of the First Division teams in Argentine football, with the presence of players from the formative divisions between 15 and 16 years old. The decision has a clear logic: spaces linked to sports concentrate a high exposure of young people to betting advertising, in addition to social dynamics that can encourage their participation.
David Urreta, president of the Córdoba Lottery, and Matías Marasca, commercial director of Talleres, led the event and stressed the importance of adding clubs as active players in prevention.
NoVa+: artificial intelligence at the service of prevention
NoVa+ was born from a collaboration between two faculties of the National University of San Luis: the Faculty of Physical, Mathematical and Natural Sciences and the Faculty of Psychology. This combination of technology and behavioral sciences defines the tool’s approach: it is not just about blocking content, but about accompanying adolescents through a virtual assistant with artificial intelligence that guides them in risk situations and promotes responsible digital habits.
The application also incorporates a parental supervision function that allows responsible adults to monitor minors’ access to entertainment sites restricted to those over 18 years of age. It is free and available for Android and iOS.
Luca: the digital shield for schools and clubs
Where NoVa+ acts on the individual, Luca acts on the environment. This tool is designed so that educational institutions, clubs and training centers can block access to online gaming sites from their own internet networks, thus covering the time young people spend outside the home and without direct supervision from their families.
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The logic behind Luca is simple but effective: if the spaces where adolescents study, train and socialize do not allow access to these platforms, a significant window of exposure is eliminated that individual filters cannot cover on their own.
An Argentine response to a national problem without a federal solution
The most revealing aspect of this initiative is not the tools themselves, but the context in which they emerge. Argentina still does not have comprehensive federal regulation on online gaming, and the protection of minors in this area largely depends on the will and resources of each province.
That a province has resorted to its own university development to build original technological solutions speaks both of the urgency of the problem and the limits of the national approach. NoVa+ and Luca are, in this sense, a local response to a crisis that far exceeds the local.
With the launch of these tools, Córdoba sets a precedent in the fight against child gambling addiction by prioritizing education and technology over simple prohibition. By bringing prevention directly to changing rooms and classrooms, the provincial government recognizes that the problem is not solved only with laws but with presence in the real spaces where young people live. The success of NoVa+ and Luca will not only be measured by the number of blocked sites but by their ability to instill a culture of responsible gaming in a generation that constantly lives with risk just one click away.
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