Ok. Is it simple to make a first deposit using an Argentine bank? then use netteller for cashouts?

Not possible imo. You should make a poker site transfer or have someone with a Neteller account transfer to him. As far as I know you could use Ukash to transfer money to Neteller, but right now there are very strict controls regarding the dollar so I'm not sure if that's a possibility.

With the Neteller card cashouts you would be getting screwed over so hard. First you would be converting dollars to pesos at the official exchange rate which is really bad but then you would also be paying Neteller fees ($6 plus 3% per withdrawal) and probably regular ATM fees too. If you're going to be cashing out a decent amount of money then you should look into Uruguay for the banking. If you don't have dual citizenship then you probably need your dad's help since it is apparently harder for Americans to open accounts in Uruguay these days.

this is all really help guys. I am talking with my dad about these options. Any other advice is appriciated.
Thanks again.

also.. a reason i want to play under my fathers name is to be able to give him access to some cash if the family needs. Hopefully he can get a setup in Uraguay. we'll see.

Wait is the peso more or less pegged to the USD these days? (that's what the chart looks like). If I were to visit, should I be bringing USD with me to exchange somewhere for pesos instead of using an ATM card?

"pegging" means a lot of things so I can't really answer that.

Officially, you can buy and sell dollars around 4.5 pesos/dollar. This was exclusively for residents and the amount of dollars you could purchase was related to your income, your credit card expenses and a few other things that AFIP could say, ok you can buy X amount of dollars. If you wanted more dollars, you'd have to buy them at change houses at the informal rate. Recently, as in the past week, regardless of how many dollars you purchased recently, income and whatever formula they were using, they've stopped selling dollars.

I've heard rumors that on Monday (tomorrow) they might increase the official rate to 5.1. That would help at ATMs when withdrawing from your dollar accounts but it is still below what is the price on the street. I don't know if dollars will be available now to residents either.

If you were to come here you should bring dollars and then sell them. You will get a much better price.

So as a tourist I'd be more interested in going USD -> ARS. It sounds like ATMs spit out pesos at 4.5:1 which is obviously bull****. If you have USD in hand, do you just go to a casa de cambio and exchange those for pesos at a better rate or do you need to do some backroom exchange somewhere?

Sounds like a gigantic bitch for anyone living there.

Not at casas de cambio, you exchange them at a "cueva", that might be an office in the financial district or a furniture shop at palermo.

For those that need a good reference for selling dollars and getting pesos (comes to your house, not going to rob you, etc) or the other way, I have a trustworthy guy I don't mind recommending. Shoot me a PM.

Hey! I'm not new here, first post cause i didn't speak english very good... I'm getting better. Im going to Buenos Aires (Palermo) next week , I'm gonna stay there for 2 years or so, I'm a micro stakes player but i make enough for rent and basics, I'm going ok in my local casino too ( Don't play much there because is a really bad structure (15-20bb) and the game is really slow, but they have really good tournaments, i made some good money playing those... everyone is really bad, so i have a nice bankroll for live games too, if thing goes wrong i have some money saved and recently sold mi car, so I'm going to be playing my best game ...not being result oriented, I'm interesting in meet someone who's living in BA, and help each other , i can teach you spanish (I'm from Spain) , and you teach me english , and i really want to talk there with other poker players, about places to play, casinos in other cities of argentina , etc etc. If someone is interested send me a message!

With all the talk about inflation and recommendations to bring USD into the country, I think you guys should know about another option. There are some Argentinians on the bitcoin forums looking for ways to get their cash out. Bitcoins are much easier to move out of Argentina into a foreign account than USD cash is because you can carry them on a USB flash drive and not have to deal with cash sniffing dogs at the border. For those who don't know, bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency, so you can just do whatever you want with them without any regulation.

This is particularly good for poker players already living in BA. You can use your foreign bank account to wire your poker winnings onto a bitcoin exchange. The best one for US accounts is MTGox, and for Euro area accounts it is Intersango. Intersango doesn't even require identity verification documents. There are many other transfer methods besides wires too.

Once you have exchanged your money for bitcoins (1 bitcoin is currently worth ~$5.65) you can instantly withdraw them to a bitcoin client on your computer in BA and trade them to someone for your living expenses. According to this article, USD is currently getting traded for pesos at 5.5, a 23% markup over the official 4.48 rate. And Soah just said in the other BA thread that you can get 25-35%. So your living expenses would be that much lower. This idea illustrates the potential of a decentraized digital currency that can instantly cross borders avoiding government control. I would expect some kind of crackdown or legislation when this method gets popular, but until then, you guys should pillage it.

Several people are interested in the bitcoin selling, so I will make a post on bitcointalk.org and see how many buyers come out of the woodwork. A guy is already selling on the forum, but he's only offering up to 200 bitcoins, so I could offer to take all the action over 200BTC ($1k) worth.

I can even sell a few hundred bitcoins to someone in exchange for moneybookers or poker monies (cover my trade fees plz) just to get the ball rolling and show how beneficial this is to poker players in BA. 35% off on living expenses seems pretty awesome if the buyers are there.

Just found a facebook group for Bitcoin Argentina here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/141795129242281/?ref=ts

Someone should ask them how they are doing the trades in BA.

I made a post about selling bitcoins in BA for pesos at 33% vig and a guy from elbitcoin.org wants some. The post specified volume of 200-1000 bitcoins ($1300-$6500 USD at the current $6.50 exchange rate), so if someone wants this, let me know and I can give you the buyer info or give you access to the email account so that you can trade with anyone who emails that address about buying. First person to hit me up gets it You're welcome guys!

If there are small stakes players in BA, it is easy to do trades smaller than 1k USD, as there are tons of posts about it in the bitcointalk spanish forum and the facebook argentina group, and it certainly seems worth it for this outrageous markup. Lol @ 33% vig, that's almost enough to make me want to move to BA instead of brazil

Cant bitcoins fluctuate dramatically if you have to hold them for a lengthy period?