Operator News

Spain – President calls to restrict gaming in Extremadura

By Phil - 12 November 2019

The President of Extremadura Guillermo Fernández Vara has expressed his concern regarding the proliferation of sports betting shops in the region.

A decree was approved at the beginning of the year, which establishes a minimum distance between being establishments and educational centres. When asked by local press abut the continued expansion Vara said that he would seek out other ways to curb gambling in the autonomous community by other means.

Vara said: “We were the first communities to legislate because we are really concerned” but operators had been able to bypass recently imposed restrictions through legal means. However the regional government has been working on a new proposals for months, which could be due both to an increase in current betting rates (set at 10 per cent of the revenue) and in the creation of a new tax.

Fernández Vara announced the proposal as opposition to gaming mounts with a number of protests taking place in recent weeks in different locations in the region. The United Parliamentary Group for Extremadura has gone so far as to propose that the granting of new opening authorizations be suspended and that the renewal of existing licences comply with the minimum distances established by law. According to the data collected in the proposal, between 2016 and 2018 gaming venues increased from 41 to 114 in the region.

Opposition to gambling is growing. The Business Council of Gaming (Cejuego) recently argued in a statement that gambling is a “legal, regulated and standardized” activity in Spanish society, and denied that there is a problem when it comes to underage players being granted access to slot parlours. In a statement the head of Cejuego Alejando Landaluce argued that unnecessary alarm was being caused by the false notion of widespread underage gambling. Cejuego issued the statement before a march was held on Sunday in November against a proliferation of gambling in Madrid.