The Ministry of Consumer Affairs shuts down 10 websites and fines operators with penalties of more than 81 million euros.
The Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs, and the 2030 Agenda has released the sanctions imposed in the field of online betting and gambling, which have become final during the second semester of 2023 in Spain. A total of 17 operators have been sanctioned for committing serious or very serious infringements, with fines exceeding 81 million euros (81,150,000 euros).
The penalties have been issued by the General Directorate for the Regulation of Gambling (DGOJ), and out of the 17 resolutions in total, 10 of them correspond to infractions considered very serious. These sanctions account for the majority of the amounts claimed by the Ministry and, furthermore, have resulted in the disqualification of 9 operators for a period of two years, and a disqualification of four years for the Organización Nacional de Discapacitados Españoles y Europeos (ONDEE), which has also been fined with the highest penalty: 35 million euros.
Along with ONDEE, the very serious infractions have also been imposed on various online gambling operators operating in Spain without a license, who have been identified by the Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego. Specifically, these are companies such as Rabadi, Uno Digital Media, Eight Stars, Mrsloty Games Tech, Entretenimiento Rojo, Onyxion Malta, Trw Corporate, Vdsoft&Script Development, and Uniquegame, each fined 5 million euros, in accordance with the provisions of the Ley de Regulación del Juego (LRJ). In total, very serious penalties amounting to 80 million euros have been imposed.
Furthermore, the DGOJ has detected serious infractions in 7 other operators in the online betting and gambling sector. In this case, the operators do have a license to operate in Spain, but have committed some of the infractions typified in Law 13/2011 on gambling regulation. Among the sanctioned companies are, for example, Gamesys, 888, Esgaming, or Codere. These 7 operators will have to face economic sanctions totaling 1,150,000 euros.
Once notified to the interested parties, both the confirmed serious and very serious infractions will be published on the DGOJ website. On the other hand, the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs, and the 2030 Agenda has already published the final sanctioning resolutions since July 2021. Since then, 139 sanctions have been published, with fines totaling over 333 million euros.
Source of information: Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs, and the 2030 Agenda
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