A new study provides insights into the impact of the measures imposed in 2020.

Spain.- Back in 2020, Spain imposed strict restrictions on gambling advertising and marketing. TV and radio ads were restricted to the hours between 1am and 5am, and welcome bonuses and influencer marketing were banned. Sports sponsorship was also banned from the end of the 2020-21 season. 

A study now shows the impact of those measures, finding that the number of new online gambling accounts created in Spain fell by over a half in the three years after the measures were imposed. Published by the peer-reviewed Harm Reduction Journal, the study found that 1.35m new gambling accounts were opened in 2023, 55 per cent fewer than the 3.01m accounts opened in 2020.

New account sign-ups dropped in each of the three years after the measures were introduced, with the biggest drop being a decline of 35 per cent in 2022 (1.37m new accounts compared to 2.61m in 2021). That compares to consecutive increases in new signups from 2015 to 2020, based on data taken from company reports as aggregated by the Spanish regulator, the DGOJ.

The ban on welcome bonuses may have been the most influential factor since it may have reduced the number of customers opening multiple accounts with different operators to take advantage of promotions. 

However, in spite of the drop in the number of new accounts per year, player deposits actually rose in all three years studied, climbing from €2.19bn in 2020 to €3.18bn in 2023. Player wagers increased from €20.75bn in 2020 to €26.5bn in 2023, with a slight dip in 2022.

As for 2024, which falls outside the study, online gross gambling revenue (GGR) from the regulated Spanish industry reached a record €1.45bn. That’s a rise of 17.6 per cent year-on-year, outpacing Europe as a whole. Both online casino gaming and online sports betting saw double-digit increases in revenue. Online casino revenue rose by 17 per cent to €730.7m and online betting revenue rose by 23.8 per cent to €608.9m

Some measures introduced in the Royal Decree of 2021 were overturned by the Supreme Court last year following an appeal made by the industry association Jdigital. This allowed operators to market to new account holders again, to place ads on video sharing platforms and to use celebrities in ads. The Spanish government vowed to reimpose the measures through legislation.