Online gambling in Spain has gone from being a marginal phenomenon to becoming a central concern for public health authorities. This was acknowledged by Andrés Barragán, Secretary General for Consumer Affairs and Gambling, during his participation in the First Ibero-American Meeting on Responsible Gambling, organized by the Spanish Federation of Rehabilitated Gambling Players (FEJAR).
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At the event, which brought together various stakeholders from the sector, Barragán emphasized that the current model disproportionately benefits operators, while a minority of users account for the majority of losses. “In Spain, we have a serious public health problem with online gambling. That is why we need to continue strengthening regulation to reduce these harms,” the official stated via his official LinkedIn profile, where he also detailed the measures the Ministry will implement.
The three new regulations for online gambling in Spain
The regulatory package announced by the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs, and Agenda 2030 includes three specific lines of action, all aimed at reducing the harm of online gambling and correcting market imbalances:
1. Effective limits on wagered amounts
The first measure aims to close one of the main loopholes in the current system: the possibility for a player to avoid betting limits simply by switching operators. With the new regulation, limits will be cross-cutting across the entire market, so that no user can bypass restrictions by fragmenting their activity among different platforms.
2. More transparent advertising regarding the sector’s profits
The second initiative modifies the approach to advertising linked to online gambling. According to the Ministry, current messages rely excessively on the individual responsibility of the player, without providing visibility to the commercial dimension of the business. The new regulation will require advertising to include information on the revenue operators obtain from their users, creating a more balanced and informed communication framework.
3. Risk detection system for players designed by public health experts
The third measure replaces current control mechanisms with a risk detection system for players developed by public health professionals. Unlike existing models, this system will not be designed based on market logic, but rather on clinical and epidemiological criteria, which would allow for more precise identification of vulnerable users before they establish problematic habits.
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The profile of the problematic player: a minority that bears the majority of losses
Barragán specified that the problem does not affect all market participants equally. As he described, it is the operators who design the digital environments, target advertising toward high-risk profiles, and accumulate almost all the profits, while a small group of players absorbs a disproportionate share of the losses.
This characterization of the market as “absolutely unbalanced” justifies, according to the Secretary General, the need to intervene not only in the player’s behavior but also in the architecture of the system surrounding them: the platforms, the targeting algorithms, and the advertising messages.
Alarming data: more young people are gambling in Spain
The announcement of new regulations comes at a time when data on youth gambling consumption shows a worrying trend. The ESTUDES 2025 survey, published by the National Plan on Drugs and conducted between February and June 2025 among 35.256 students aged 14 to 18, reveals an increase in participation in both online and in-person gambling compared to the 2021 and 2023 editions.
According to the report’s results, 13% of students reported having played online gambling games during the analyzed period, while 20,9% participated in in-person betting. Prevalence increases with age in most of the segments analyzed.
How much players lose and who keeps the money
Although the Secretary General did not provide specific figures on the volume of losses for problematic players in Spain, his characterization of the market allows for an assessment of the problem’s scale. In regulated online gambling markets, it is common for 5 to 10% of the most active players to generate more than 50% of the sector’s revenue, which in Spain’s case could translate into losses of hundreds of millions of dollars concentrated in a small group of vulnerable users.
The new measures for betting limits and early detection aim precisely to intervene in that cycle before losses accumulate irreversibly.
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