Spain’s 17 autonomous communities agreed to cooperate and share data from their individual gambling self-exclusion networks, marking the next step in the country’s plan to bring together its self-exclusion registers.
The end of self-governance
The major barrier to the introduction of any kind of national gambling self-exclusion scheme in the country was due to the 17 autonomous communities maintaining their own individual systems, and not sharing data with others.
As a result, someone who self-excludes in Andalusia for instance could gamble at a casino in Barcelona, in Catalonia.
A cooperative framework
The cooperative structure’s principles were agreed upon at a meeting of Spain’s Gambling Policy Council, which was chaired by the Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego (DGOJ) Secretary-General Mikel Arana.
The new agreement notably received the support of autonomous cities and Spain’s online gambling hubs, Ceuta and Melilla.
Another step in the harmonisation of Spanish gambling standards
This news is another example of the desire of the DGOJ to continue its focus and efforts on harmonising Spain’s fragmented gambling laws by promoting collaboration between autonomous communities.
This agreement allows Spain’s Consumer Affairs Ministry to launch two new projects supporting the government’s ongoing reform of the nation’s federal gambling laws: the draft royal decree on safer gambling environments, and the regulatory basis for the granting of subsidies to carry out research related to the prevention of problem gambling.
Once the proposal for the integration of its self-exclusion databases is approved, the local authorities will have to move player data from locally maintained registers into the General Self-Exclusion Register (RGIAJ), which will be administrated by the nation’s central gambling regulator, the DGOJ.
Therefore, the registration system (RGIAJ), which has been in operation since 2015 and previously used as feedback on self-exclusion, will now be upgraded as a tool for players to self-exclude nationally.
