Responsible Gaming

Last reviewed 26 October 2026

The house position

The gaming room downstairs is a small part of a hotel. It is there as something to do on a wet evening between dinner and bed, and it was never meant to be the reason anyone came to Bariloche. We would rather lose an evening's custom than watch somebody lose a week of it.

It shapes how the room is run: the hours are short, the tables are few, there is no credit, and the staff are told that stopping someone is part of the job.

Strictly adults

Eighteen is the legal age in Río Negro Province and we apply it without exception. Photo identification is checked at the door on every visit, including visits by people the staff know well. A document on a telephone screen is not accepted. Anyone who cannot produce a document is turned away, politely and without discussion in front of other guests.

Children and teenagers are welcome in the rest of the lodge, but not in the doorway, in the corridor outside, or in Bar Piedra while a parent plays.

What the staff can arrange for you, on the spot

• A time limit. Tell the person at the desk when you want to be finished and they will come and tell you when that hour arrives. They will mention it once, quietly, and will not argue about it.
• A spending limit. Agree a ceiling for the evening before you sit down. It is written on the sheet behind the desk and the floor staff work to it.
• A break. Ask for one at any point and a table will be held or released as you prefer. There is a bench in the corridor and a bar through the next door.
• A quiet period. If you would prefer not to be admitted for the rest of your stay, say so and the door staff will keep that for the length of your booking.
• Self-exclusion. A longer arrangement, for a season, a year or permanently. It is confidential and kept on paper at reception, and every member of the door staff honours it.

No credit, no cash machine

Nobody here will lend you money or advance chips, a table balance cannot be charged to a room, and no card is held against play. There is no cash machine on the lower floor, and there will not be one. If you have spent what you came down with, the evening is over, and staff will not help you find more.

Signs worth noticing in yourself

None of these on its own means anything. Several of them together usually do.

• You go down earlier each night, and you stay later than you told yourself you would.
• The room is on your mind during the day, on a chairlift or halfway up a trail.
• You have started playing to win back what went yesterday.
• Your account of the night to the person you came with has become vague.
• You feel relief when you are stopped, and annoyance a minute later.
• Money set aside for the trip, for the room or for home has been used downstairs.
• You have thought, more than once, that you would like somebody else to make you stop.

If you recognise two or three of those, say so at the desk. Nobody there will be surprised or treat it as a confession.

How the staff are trained

Everybody who works the door, the floor or the desk goes through the same half day before their first shift and again every year: the legal age rules and how to check a document, how to refuse entry without humiliating anybody, what the signs above look like from the other side of a table, how to set and hold a limit, and how to take a self-exclusion request and file it so that it is still honoured eight months later by a colleague who was not there.

They are also told that nobody's pay or standing here depends on how much is played downstairs, so stopping someone costs them nothing.

If you are worried about somebody else

Speak to the duty manager. We cannot discuss another adult's evening with you, but we can make sure the floor staff are watching, that no limit is quietly lifted and that the person is offered the same conversation we would offer anybody.

In short

• Minimum age18, photo document every visit
• Hoursevenings only, kept short
• Creditnone, in any form
• Cash machine on the floornone
• Limits and breaksset with staff, in person
• Self-exclusionat reception, in person, confidential
• Online playnone, this site offers nothing

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