The Royal Decree 958/2020 on Commercial Communications for Gambling Activities – more commonly referred to as the advertising ban – remains a cause of substantial disagreement in the Spanish betting and gaming industry, the debate at the Gaming in Spain conference suggested.
Mikel Arana, Director General of the Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego (DGOJ), used his keynote at the event in Madrid to outline the regulator’s plans to improve safer gambling provisions in the online sector, but also touched on the controversy about the country’s stringent advertising guidelines.
Both in his address and a subsequent fireside chat with Birgitte Sand, former Director of the Danish Gambling Authority, Arana asserted that DGOJ data demonstrated that Royal Decree 958 – which heavily restricts advertising by operators, although stopping just short of an outright ban – had not led to a significant downturn in online player numbers or GGR.
