Operator News
Spain – Barcelona’s strategy to prevent new bookmakers slammed as ‘ridiculous’
By Phil - 21 December 2020
The Barcelona City Council has developed a strategy to prevent the opening of new bookmakers in the city as well by keeping gaming premises at least 800 meters from educational centers, and 450 meters from municipal and health facilities.
But the move has been questioned by the Catalan industry who say that not only are the new limitations not needed, they are merely a rehash of previous limitations placed on the sector 16 years ago.
Educational centers includes anything from nurseries to universities whilst municipal facilities includes libraries, social services, civic centers, centers youth, occupation centers (SOC) or any health center. The result is that, it will now be impossible to open a gambling premise anywhere in the city.
The Barcelona City Council Government Commission approved the plan saying it was protecting the most vulnerable groups from a ‘problematic or pathological gambling.’ The Councilor for Health, Gemma Tarafa, added that if one of the existing betting shops closes or intends to expand, it will not be able to reopen if it does not comply with the distance laws in the new plan.
One gaming industry executive said to the local press: “It’s ridiculous that a minister and a mayor can launch a limitation that has existed since 2004. It is embarrassing that they are using the gaming sector a sector to make politics when their measures. It is not that they are useless, but that they have already been implemented.”
Another said: “We are all open to creating appropriate regulation, but this type of movement shows that the photo is preferred to solving the problem.”
Th President of Patrojoc, private Gambling Association of Catalonia, Carlos Duero, said the move was ‘regulating problems that do not exist’ in Barcelona. He explained: “In the last 10 years Barcelona has seen 24 per cent of its existing betting shops closed, going from 67 to 51 rooms open to the public. In Madrid there is perhaps a problem of proliferation of betting houses but in Catalonia the Generalitat, in 2004, legislated and marked a number of salons, bingo halls and casinos. n addition, the regulations of the Generalitat already established that between one recreational room and another there should be a minimum distance of 1,000 meters, which already prevented, de facto, the proliferation of new businesses.”
Barcelona’s mayor Ada Colau Garzón praised the move saying it showed a ‘commitment’ to the health of the municipality’s residents, and sent a ‘powerful and necessary’ message. He believes that other local governments across Spain should follow Barcelona’s lead.
“We need to increase security in this sector to protect consumers and warn them of the risks they face,” he said.
