Short answer. Yes. Article 2016 lets the loser's creditors, spouse, descendants or others entitled to support institute the action if the loser refuses or neglects to bring it himself. As the spouse you may sue to recover what was gambled away. What is recovered goes to the creditors' claims or to the support of the family.
What the law says
If the loser refuses or neglects to bring an action to recover what has been lost, his or her creditors, spouse, descendants or other persons entitled to be supported by the loser may institute the action
Civil Code, Article 2016 — Recovery by the Loser's Dependents. Read the full provision →
The family is not left at the loser's mercy
The right to recover gambling losses belongs first to the loser, but the law does not let him bury it out of pride or complicity. Article 2016 provides that if the loser refuses or neglects to bring an action to recover what has been lost, his or her creditors, spouse, descendants or other persons entitled to be supported by the loser may institute the action. The people whose livelihood the gambling actually threatens — the spouse, the children, those owed support or money — are given standing to sue in his place. So a spouse watching household funds disappear across a table is not powerless simply because the gambler will not act.
It is a stand-in right, not a shared one
The article does not give you a claim running alongside your spouse's; it lets you step into his shoes when he will not use them. The trigger is his refusal or neglect — you act because he does not. That condition matters, because it defines when your right arises: while the loser is himself pursuing the money, there is nothing for a dependant to institute. The provision exists precisely for the common case where the gambler is unwilling to expose his losses or is entangled with the winner, and it routes around that unwillingness rather than waiting on it.
Where the recovered money goes
This is not a personal windfall for whoever sues. The article directs that the sum recovered shall be applied to the creditors' claims, or to the support of the spouse or relatives, as the case may be. The money is channelled to the purpose that justified letting a dependant sue in the first place — paying what the loser owes and maintaining the people he is bound to support. A spouse who brings the action is therefore recovering for the family's protection, not claiming the funds outright, and the recovery is measured and applied to those ends.
What to establish before you sue
Two things anchor a claim like this. First, your standing — that you are the spouse, a creditor, a descendant or otherwise entitled to support from the loser, since that is what the article requires. Second, the loss itself and the winner's identity, because your suit stands on the same footing the loser's would have: what was lost, to whom, and when it was paid. Establishing that the loser has refused or neglected to act completes the picture, and it is worth documenting that refusal rather than merely asserting it.