Image: Shutterstock
Spain has introduced new warning labels on gambling that mimic the messages seen on tobacco. The latest warnings carry more explicit messages about the risks of betting and must be displayed on adverts and online gambling sites.
Last week, Spain’s Ministry for Consumer Affairs ordered online gambling operators to display the more severe warnings. Instead of light messages such as “play responsibly,” the warnings must be more direct. The new messages include:
Gambling addiction is a risk of gambling
The probability of being a losing gambler is 75%
Losses for all gamblers are four times greater than their winnings
Minister for Social Rights Pablo Bustinduy announced the new measures at a safer gambling event. He said the messaging must be displayed across online games and in any banners and marketing messaging on social media.
Bustinduy said that “the responsibility should not fall on users but on the authorities, who have the democratic duty to ensure that the environments they access are safe.”
Gambling Leading Form of Addiction in Spain
The new law comes after a 2024 addiction study by Spain’s Ministry of Health found that up to 82% of addiction treatments in Spain are related to gambling.
Another study found that information about gambling addiction is not being shared with young people. In a survey, more than half of 14- to 18-year-olds reported not having received information about the problems and risks associated with the activity.
Bustinduy claims this has led to an increase in young people gambling. The number of 18-25 year olds gambling online in Spain has increased by more than 20% in the last year. The new messaging looks to educate young people and reduce this number.
The rise also coincides with a Supreme Court ruling that allowed operators to resume using welcome bonuses. Bustinduy is campaigning for the ban on bonuses to be reintroduced. Spain has also introduced stricter ID checks to limit underage gambling.
Gambling Group Views Measures as Deeply Concerning
JDigital, a trade body for gambling companies, was highly critical of the new regulations. The group claims the lack of any physical damage, such as the health risks caused by tobacco, means “equating online gambling with tobacco makes no sense.”
A statement added, “Online gambling, when carried out responsibly, is a perfectly legal and legitimate form of digital leisure. This parallelism sends a misleading message to society and contributes to an unfairly distorted perception of the sector.”
The group, which formed in 2013 to lobby for gambling interests in public policy, also argues that it unfairly stigmatizes adult gamblers.
It stated, “Furthermore, these measures do not encourage responsible consumption, but rather unnecessarily stigmatize adult users who gamble legally. It is like implying that every gambler is, by definition, a person at risk, which is unfair and contrary to the necessary differentiation between healthy leisure and problematic behaviors.”