For Spanish Gambling Ad Reform, Waiting Is Name Of The Game

January 24, 2025
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Four months after the reintroduction of gambling advertising restrictions that the Supreme Court struck down via the Spanish health law, there has been no movement on the measure, despite repeated promises from regulators to introduce reforms to an industry they say is gravely in need of them.
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Four months after the reintroduction of gambling advertising restrictions that the Supreme Court struck down via the Spanish health law, there has been no movement on the measure, despite repeated promises from regulators to introduce reforms to an industry they say is gravely in need of them.

Amendment 93 to the Draft Law on the State Agency for Public Health introduced proposed new final provisions “with special attention to the protection of the health of people, with particular attention to children [and] young people”. It limits advertising in all spheres, including by mail, email, all email communications, social media and audiovisual.

Sending promotional material by mail has to be authorised by the addressee, search engine results for gaming must be organic and operators must disseminate messages on responsible gambling, to name a few.

Although the government presented the amendments to the draft law months ago, it has faced 20 extensions since its inception. The draft law was approved in August 2022, and in January 2024, health minister Monica Garcia told Congress that it would get the green light in the next quarter. The Ministry of Health now says it will be ready in 2025.

Santiago Asensi, a lawyer and founder of Asensi Abogados, was not immediately concerned by this timeline. “That bill is stuck in the Congress,” he told Vixio GamblingCompliance.

Patricia Lalanda, a lawyer at Loyra Abogado, echoed his comments: “Its approval will depend on various agreements among representatives of political groups and their arithmetic. Bear in mind that this is a legislative process, with all the complexities that it entails, making it difficult to pass, but not impossible.”

Despite its lack of progress, at ICE this week, the head of the General Directorate for the Regulation of Gambling (DGOJ), Mikel Arana, said that he was working with members of Congress. He conceded that the timeline for the bill was uncertain. 

Arana said that the DGOJ is planning to introduce cross-operator deposit limits by the beginning of 2026 and said they are working on an algorithm to identify patterns of problem gambling. Again, that is not expected until at least two years from now.

The advertising decree of 2020 was struck down by the Supreme Court in April 2024 after it found that the restrictions overstepped the powers of a decree and would have to be enacted by law.

Royal Decree 958/2020 came during the Covid-19 lockdown, and was inspired by the fact that Arana saw too many gambling ads on television, he told a gathered audience at Gaming in Spain in 2023. “All the time, they were in our houses and on the television,” he said.

Directly after the Supreme Court ruling, the DGOJ promised to seek to reinstate the limitations of the decree through legislation.

At the time, consumer affairs minister Pablo Bustinduy announced: “We are going to undertake a legislative initiative to restore these articles and to expand and strengthen the regulation of online gambling in Spain."

Again, his comments were not met with concern, as the week the decree was struck down, Spanish President Pedro Sánchez announced that he may resign in the face of a corruption investigation involving his wife, Begoña Gómez. The industry commented to Vixio that it was the main political focus. A week later, Sánchez announced that he would stay in office.

Despite this, the pace of change has remained the same. 

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