Earlier this week, the Directorate General for the Regulation of Gambling (DGOJ) of Spain published a draft resolution that seeks to implement changes to how local consumers are being marketed by lottery operators.
The draft resolution focuses on lottery operators and any third party that is involved in the promotion of lottery products. It also seeks to extend the advertising restrictions that the Spanish Government imposed on local gambling and lottery operators at the end of 2020.
At the same time, along with the publication of the draft resolution, the governmental agency opened up a consultation period, as part of which stakeholders and other interested parties are given the opportunity to share their opinion on the proposed changes. They are given until March 1st, 2023 to do so.
Under the provisions of the proposed draft resolution, lottery operators are set to implement special age verification through Spanish national databases and inform underage or other individuals, who are banned from taking part in gambling services, that they are not legally permitted to purchase lottery tickets. On the other hand, lotteries will also be forced to implement an official seal on their websites proving that the platform is authentic. Their third-party marketing partners are set to follow the same rules and make sure the sales of lottery products via their channels are fair and transparent.
Spanish National Lotteries Can Partner with Public Ventors to Promote and Sell Their Products
The two national lotteries of Spain – SELAE, the lottery for charity purposes, and ONCE, the lottery for the disabled – are currently permitted by law to join forces with third parties when it comes to the sales and marketing of their products. The third parties in question could involve public vendors such as restaurants, cafes, retail and tobacco shops, etc.
The newly proposed draft regulation also seeks to extend the provisions of the Spanish Law on Gaming Regulation from May 2011 and another piece of legislation, called the Royal Decree, from November 2020 that implemented a series of advertising restrictions for gambling operators, including a watershed suspension on TV and radio adverts. Lottery operators and their public vendor partners are also set to be banned to offer bonuses linked to their gambling services.
The draft resolution was made following some observations of the Directorate General for the Regulation of Gambling that the number of online gambling websites and applications selling lottery tickets and SELAE and ONCE games has dramatically increased lately. The DGOJ also noted that the registered growth also boosted the need to make sure that suitable customer protection is provided to the public by the aforementioned online vendors.
In November 2022, the governmental agency revealed that its enforcement actions over the first six months of the year brought monetary sanctions to 53 gambling companies offering their services online. The fines amounted to a total of €84.3 million, with the figure showing a significant increase from the year before when the authority’s actions saw only 21 operators sanctioned. The majority of companies were only fined for breaches of the country’s gambling advertising rules that were officially introduced through the provisions of the Royal Decree of 2020. Only a number of licensees were stripped of their operating permits due to such violations.
