Spain’s Directorate General for the Regulation of Gaming (DGOJ) has reported that during the second half of 2023, it fined 17 gambling platforms due to serious or even severe violations with a total of EUR 81 million in penalties.
In the first half of 2023, the DGOJ had imposed sanctions on 30 operators for EUR 71.4 million. Since these types of penalties began to be made public in July 2021, 139 fines totaling EUR 333 million have been applied.
Mikel Arana, Director General of the DGOJ, highlighted that the fines to unregulated operators are intended to prevent illegal gambling in the Spanish market. “As soon as we detect them we try to block them because they are the gateway for minors, or for people who have registered in the General Registry of Gambling Access Interdictions – the self-exclusion registry -, and also do not apply the safe gambling measures in force in Spain,” he stated.
Mikel Arana
Rabadi, Uno Digital Media, Eight Stars, Mrsloty Games Tech, Red Entertainment, Onyxion Malta, Trw Corporate, Vdsoft&Script Development and Uniquegame are the operators sanctioned for very serious infringements. Each was fined EUR 5 million and a website closure for two years.
Seven other operators were also detected with infractions of lesser severity than the previous ones, such as Gamesys, 888, Esgaming, or Codere. “They occur when a legal operator allows access to minors or people registered in the self-exclusion register. It usually happens because of technical problems. We notify them and they usually fix it quickly, but even if they do it carries a penalty,” the official explained.
“In any case, licensed operators are getting better and better at complying with the rules, so these types of penalties will become less and less frequent,” he said. In these cases, the total fines amount to EUR 1.1 million.
“Illegal gambling in Spain is below 3%, we are leaders in Europe in blocking this type of pages, although sometimes with some it is like playing cat and mouse because we close them and they open them again under another name,” Arana added.