Spanish law aims to liberalise egaming sector
With new egaming regulation potentially passing into law this summer, lawyer Ignacio Herreros Margarit from Ecija Abogados breaks down Spain's regulatory proposals.
While other countries such as the US persist in trying to block online gambling activities, Spain is preparing a law that will liberalise the sector.
After its first round in Congress, the law will go to the Senate where it will again be debated for at least a month before it comes back to Congress for approval. There have been 269 amendments proposed to the original
draft by the different Congress groups, however the final draft passed does not imply many material changes from the original.
The new draft clarifies there will not be limitations on the number of general licences to be granted for each type of
game, but this is only in principle. The National Gaming Commission will be able to propose that the public tender opened to obtain a general licence for a particular type of game should be limited to a certain amount of operators.
The licensing system still requires two types of licence, a general one that entitles an operator to operate a particular game, and an individual licence that authorises an operator to offer a particular game within the types covered by its general licence. Operators willing to offer their games to Spanish users will also be obliged to provide their games through a dot.es domain name.
The new draft maintains a grace period for those sponsorship agreements signed by gambling operators before 1 January 2011. This will allow operators to continue to sponsor sports clubs and venues up until the first general licences are granted for each type of game.
However, in accordance with some declarations and amendments of certain political groups, this aspect will be further debated in the Senate.
While the new draft refers to poker or roulette games, one of the controversial issues is that it omits any reference to online bingo. The reasons for this have not been officially disclosed; however, some rumours suggest the Spanish government considers it “too addictive”. Given the amendments made in Congress, I do not anticipate many changes, but it is difficult to be 100% certain.
The predictions of the government are that the law will be passed between June and July. In any case, this is just a framework.
After that, the government will have to approve the rules that will develop the law in the different types of games as well as the particular requirements and conditions the government decides to impose on gambling operators.