Spain establishes framework to share gambling self-exclusion data
Spain’s 17 autonomous communities have finally agreed to cooperate and share data from their individual gambling self-exclusion networks.
Spain.- The major barrier to the introduction of any kind of national gambling self-exclusion scheme in Spain has been the fact that most of the country’s 17 autonomous communities maintain their own individual systems, and don’t share data with others.
As a result, that means that someone who self-excludes in Andalusia in the south, could gamble at a casino in Barcelona, in Catalonia.
That could come to an end as the 17 communities have now agreed to establish a cooperative framework to manage and share the data from their individual gambling self-exclusion networks.
The principles were agreed on at a meeting of Gambling Policy Council chaired by Mikel Arana, secretary-general of the Spanish gaming regulator DGOJ.
The self-exclusion tools used by each community are based on the RGIAJ system introduced in 2015, which feeds player self-exclusion data to the community’s public health networks, giving the DGOJ little opportunity to oversee the measurement of problem gambling in Spain.
The new agreement has the support of the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, Spain’s online gambling hubs, which aim to launch a “universal system” for player self-exclusion that its licensees must comply with.
The agreement will also allow Spain’s Consumer Affairs Ministry to launch new projects to support the government’s ongoing reform of federal gambling laws. The ministry is due to announce a new Royal Decree on the development of “safer gambling environments” for retail and online gambling businesses.
The ministry will also secure accountability to granting subsidies for research on the prevention of gambling disorders.
See also: Spain: player spend on online gaming grows 4.1% year-on-year
The move is another step in the harmonisation of Spanish gambling standards. Earlier in the year, the DGOJ launched a new technical unit with standardisation group UNE to create unified gambling standards and harmonised policies across the country.
In February, operators in Spain began trialing a national gambling support helpline.
