Last updated on December 8th, 2018 at 03:58 am
The growing legalization of sports betting, plus the increasing popularity of online gambling brings about a whole nest of issues. While Sports betting platform are mostly exempt, fortunately. Sports leagues are asking for integrity fees, countries are scrambling to regulate and tax revenues from operators. And advertising is blowing up and there are complaints about all of these.
In the case of Spain, there is a proposal brewing between the PSOE Government as well as Podemos, an opposition party that somehow involves gambling operators in their budget deal. Apparently, the section on gambling in the proposed budget deal talks about the aggressive advertising of gambling operators. Advertising gambling causes a lot of serious problems with pathological gambling behaviors of people. Especially those with gambling addiction, they state.
Gambling Industry in Spain: Advertising Limits
The proposal states that there should be restrictions to advertising when gambling is the subject. They want to implement a policy similar to their stand on tobacco. Sponsorships should not exist, and there should be limits with media advertising. In addition, they are looking into providing more information to the public. Particularly players and bettors, to be aware of their behavior towards gambling. The government also wants the operators to be part of their policy on addressing the detrimental effects that, they say, gambling can have to the people. This means there will be additional fees for by online gambling operators. This is to pay for responsible gambling programs.
Of course, the local gambling operators are against the limitations on advertising. Which is seen as quite excessive. Operators argue that this will limit their competitiveness with offshore operators. They also feel that comparing tobacco to gambling is different, and, as such, an unfair comparison. And that if they will restrict online gambling advertising, then the same measures should apply to other gambling activities. Lotteries included.