2020 was a great year for Spain’s online gambling market! New figures show that the market grew by 17.7% last year. Keep reading below to find out more about Spain’s gambling industry.
Today’s gambling industry in Spain as we know it today was established back in 2011 when the country passed a piece of regulation known as the Spanish Gambling Act 13/2011, allowing the government to introduce several gambling options for Spanish players.
Since that moment, the country introduced games like poker, bingo, and casino games, which all fall under the category called iGaming, and sports and horse racing betting, collectively known as betting. Then, there are the lotteries which are another regulated aspect of the gambling industry in the country.
Well, it seems that 2020 was an excellent year for the online gambling market in the country, according to new figures released by the end of the last year by the Spanish gaming authority DGOJ. The data shows that the market experienced a 17.7% year-on-year growth in revenue when compared to the same period in 2019.
More data on Spain’s online gambling growth
The data from DGOJ show that the industry did experience a decrease of 4.2% on sales in the second quarter of 2020 when compared to the first quarter of the year. However, when compared to data from 2019, the industry generally enjoyed a 17.7% increase in terms of revenue growth.
Now, there are two reasons that contributed to the market’s increase. More precisely, one of them is the fact that slot machines have helped generate sales of 51.9 million euros in the country’s industry. That’s 30.4% more than slot games did in the previous year and 19% more than they did in quarterly comparison.
Plus, live roulette games also recorded a major spike in growth. More precisely, sales in this type of games recorded a 75% increase when compared to the previous year, climbing by 27 million euros.
The growth of these two sectors of the industry has, according to DGOJ, helped offset the increase experienced by sports betting in the country, which suffered due to many of the sporting events getting cancelled or delayed because of the Coronavirus pandemic.
Thus, betting sales have decreased significantly in the country, seeing an income fall of 20.8% compared to 2019 and a 28.4% decrease when compared to the first quarter of last year, falling to only 68.1 million euros. However, the sector is expected to recover slowly in time.
What are the regulations regarding casinos in Spain?
Now, let’s understand better how online casinos work in the country.
Online casinos in Spain are regulated by the central gaming authority called DGOJ. This authority has the power to either issue or suspend licenses as per the industry’s established practices. Today, Spanish authorities are incredibly accepting of established brands that follow the legal framework as laid out by DGOJ. However, unauthorized online casino providers are often removed because they fail to meet mandatory consumer protection standards.
Spain’s online gambling industry has been performing really great over the past few years. While the industry had only a million players taking part in various gambling contests by the end of the year 2012, today, the sector has attracted nearly its entire 50 million population. More precisely, today, there are 84.9% of Spanish adults participate in gambling contests across the country to win some money from gambling. This is an impressive audience of players for online casino providers in the country!
Yet, Spain’s online gambling industry didn’t always look the way it does these days. More precisely, the industry didn’t include slots gratis games known as “tragaperras” until 2014. However, since they were introduced, slot games started to attract more players than ever before.
Generally, Spain’s gambling industry has experienced uninterrupted growth across all its sectors since 2011, when the Spanish authorities have passed and promulgated the Gambling Act.
Can Spanish players play in online casinos from Spain?
If this is what you came for to find out, know that the answer is “yes.” The only requirement to do so is to have the legal gambling age which is 18 years old.
Another great thing to know about the country’s industry is that it has a significantly small gambling addiction incidence among its players. More precisely, data shows that only 0.3% of gamblers report or show problem and irresponsible gambling behaviors.
So, it’s safe to say that the country is one of the safest places to be if you are a fan of online gambling games and you want to Jugar fiabilidad y tranquilidad.
Online casinos in Spain
The online casino games providers are the core part of the industry, so it’s only fair to talk a bit about their situation of doing business in the country.
Casinos, both online and traditional land-based ones, pay taxes just like any other business in Spain. More precisely, the current rate of taxation for online providers is 25%. However, the current rate may be revised as the Spanish authorities now focus on protecting consumers more heavily.
Although the 25% tax rate is one of the toughest in the European Union, Spanish players represent one of the largest markets on the continent, encouraging online operators to want to meet the criteria asked by the government to gain access to this audience.
At the beginning of 2020, the providers have also found out that they will soon be dealing with a new challenge in doing business in Spain: the government has introduced new stricter rules on gambling advertisements.
More precisely, Spain has issued a new set of measures that aim to limit exposure to consumers to gambling ads. The authorities’ new set of measures could be making it very difficult for operators to reach out to their target audiences.
