The Spanish gambing operators association, Jdigital, has lashed out at the country’s draconian new gambling advertising restrictions. 

Yesterday, the Royal Decree on Commercial Communications of Gaming Activities came into force, restricting TV and radio advertising for gambling to the definitely not prime time hours of between 1am and 5am. 

Furthermore, access to all online gambing content must be age restricted, and the use of promotional bonuses are now prohibited. 

Additionally, all gambling sponsorships with football clubs is to be banned, with existing deals only permitted to run until the end of the 2020/21 Spanish season. Last week, the Spain’s minister of consumer affairs, Alberto Garzon, wrote to football clubs, reminding them they would need to terminate all contracts with gambling companies.

Responding to the new regulations, Jdigital released a statement saying:

“We do not believe that there is good or bad gambling, as the Government is proposing, but we defend that online gambling should be a responsible leisure option, as the sector has always advocated and will advocate.

“We consider the Draft Royal Decree on Commercial Communications of Gaming Activities approved today discriminatory, unfair and disproportionate, especially in a market in which online gambling is a legal activity highly regulated, and where the incidence rate of problem gambling has remained stable at 0.3% of the population between 15 and 65 years of age since 2015, being one of the lowest in Europe.”

Jdigital has also warned that the advertising ban will have “dire consequences” for the protection of vulnerable groups, leaving them more open to exposure to illegal, unregulated black market operators. Pressing home this point, Jdigital pointed to the fact that last year 196 illegal gambling websites were blocked by Spanish authorities. 

AYO.NEWS says:

As we’ve noted before, it seems that right up to the eleventh hour, many Spanish operators and clubs had privately thought the new restrictions would be watered down or thrown out, especially considering the impact of the COVID-19 crisis. 

However, it must now be clear to all but the most deluded, that the anti-gambling industry policies we are seeing in Spain are politically and ideologically driven, just like in Italy, Sweden, and the UK, and not based on logic, reason, or factual evidence. 

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