Spain Pushing Forward With New Gambling Regulations

Updated On Oct 5, 2020 by Ella McDonald

SpainSpain is set to implement strict gambling regulations in October 2020 that is aimed to curb the freedom of gambling operators in the country. The new regulations were fast tracked as Spain pushed the European Commission (EC) to speed up the approval processing on the basis that children’s lives were at stake.

The EC granted approval of these new restrictions which are expected to be rolled out shortly. Some of the new regulations will prevent sports teams from showcasing the brand and logos of gambling operators, limit gambling operators from advertising on TV and social media platforms and restrict operators from going over the top with their welcome bonus offers.

Gambling operators in Spain have tried to push for more leniencies but Spain’s Minister for Consumer Affairs Alberto Garzón is not willing to entertain these requests. Garzón believes that gambling operators have had way too much freedom for far too long and it has impacted Spaniards negatively. He also warned that even after the new regulations were implemented, his team would still looking to implement additional curbs to keep operators in check.

Problem Gambling Lowest In EU

CEJUEGO completed its annual market study and released the findings for 2019 in its Gambling & Society 2020 report. The survey was carried out with the help of University Carlos III of Madrid which looked at all licensed gambling operators in the country and their stats.

The report showed that there hasn’t been any major increase in problem gambling numbers when compared year-on-year. The data from 2019 shows that only 0.3 percent of Spaniards are categorized as problem gamblers. These numbers are similar to that of Sweden which show that both Sweden and Spain have the lowest problem gambling numbers in Europe.

These numbers might definitely increase in 2020 due to COVID-19 and the extended lockdown in Spain. However, the stats from 2019 show that there is nothing alarming with the problem gambling numbers and maybe Spain has jumped the gun in pushing forward with these stringent gambling measures that are designed to curb problem gambling.

The report showed that close to 85 percent of the population have engaged in some form of gambling in 2019. Most of these players have played the lottery with the yearly Christmas lottery seeing a 75 percent participation rate.

Even with these new stats which show that problem gambling is not a major issue, Spain will go ahead and implement the new regulations.

Ella McDonald Author

Worldwide gambling related news stories are what you will find being written by Ella, she has a keen interest however in UK and European based new stories relating to all gaming environments, and she is always prepared to ask the difficult questions many other journalists avoiding asking those in power.

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