Bettors in Spain are set to be restricted by new deposit limits that span all licensed operators in the country.
The law was introduced by royal decree, and has imposed a daily limit of €700, a weekly limit of €1,750, and a four-week limit of €3,300.
Previously, deposit limits of €600 daily, €1,500 weekly, €3,000 monthly were in place for individual operators.
On Tuesday 23 June, the government approved the new joint deposit framework, which prevents players from increasing their deposit allowance by opening accounts with different operators.
The Directorate-General for Gambling Regulation (DGOJ) will manage the single deposit control system, keeping track of players’ deposits right across the regulated sector to ensure they do not exceed the joint limit.
It will be the DGOJ’s responsibility now to develop a tool capable of doing this.
Where did the law come from?
Pablo Bustinduy is the Minister of Social rights, Consumer Affairs and Agenda 2030, and proposed the policy in alignment with his department’s ambition to implement the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Agenda 2030 explicitly aims to transform the economy and tackle inequality, with this rule aiming to better protect the 31% of bettors that the DGOJ has said bet across multiple operators.
The new rules have some European precedent too, with Germany having already imposed cross-provider deposit limits. Spain’s new joint deposit limit is significantly higher than in Germany, which caps players at €1,000 per month, however.
However, Spanish online gambling trade body JDigital has argued that the regulator is merely continuing along a trend by which it has consistently “prioritised introducing restrictions on the legal market without accompanying measures to strengthen the competitiveness and attractiveness of regulated operators.”
Royal decrees and proportionality
In Spain, royal decrees have previously been used to push through landmark gambling policies.
Notably, one such decree passed by the Spanish government in November 2020 banned all gambling advertising outside a short window between 1am and 5am.
Other measures included in that decree placed restrictions on sports sponsorships, celebrity endorsements and promotional offers.
In November 2024, the Supreme Court responded to industry appeals by annulling much of the decree’s provisions.
It deemed that restrictions such as those ought to be supported by full legislation and be proportional to the pursued aim.
Heated industry response
With that history in mind, it may be that similar appeals emerge from industry groups, challenging the legitimacy of this latest royal decree.
JDigital has released a statement airing its doubts about the DGOJ’s ability to carry out the task ahead of it.
The statement also notes the complexity of designing a centralised computer system that can react in real time to the activity of players betting across the whole regulated market all around the country.
The critique calls into question the evidence base used to justify the intervention, and on that point, there appears to be a significant discrepancy in the figures.
JDigital claims that DGOJ indicates around 80% of online gamblers in Spain only use a single operator, while the official announcement from the regulator claims that 31% of active online gamblers do so with multiple operators.
JDigital argues that if the new rules are only relevant to 20% of the market, then they do not represent a proportionate measure.
Conversely, the DGOJ says that the 31% figure: “underscores the need to incorporate new preventative and protective tools.”
If proportionality is to come into any future reassessment of the policy, it will be vital to establish some consensus on the number of users the joint deposit limit is protecting.
Displacement
As the online black market grows in various jurisdictions across Europe, it has become a frequent point of argument for industry to suggest that regulatory restrictions on licensed operators are likely to displace consumers to unlicensed platforms.
JDigital takes this position and has referenced a report prepared by EY, which suggests that 23.4% of surveyed users would play on the black market, with 9.3% explicitly stating that they do.
Arguably, the trade body misrepresents that data by claiming that the report indicates unlicensed operators “are accessed by one in four players.”
Nonetheless, it is clear that industry believes engagement with the black market will increase with these new restrictions.
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