The Ministry of Social Rights, Consumption and Agenda 2030 has published the sanctions for serious or very serious infringements that have been finalized through administrative proceedings against 15 operators in the online gambling and betting sector in Spain in the first half of 2024. The total fines amount to 65,325,000 euros.

Of the 15 resolutions issued by the Directorate General for the Regulation of Gambling (DGOJ), 13 have been for very serious infringements. These resolutions account for the majority of the amounts claimed by the ministry and, in addition, have resulted in the disqualification of the operators for a period of two years. In accordance with the sanctions established in the Gambling Regulation Law (LRJ) for this type of infringement, all operators have been punished with fines of 5 million euros each, which represents a total amount in this chapter of 65 million euros.

Very serious infringements correspond to foreign online gaming operators that operate without a license in Spain, and that are detected by the Directorate General for the Regulation of Gambling. These are the cases of the companies Interactive Pro, Stars Cream, Loveca Sino, Rougeca Sino, Mountberg, Alimanieri, Goldenpharaoh, Goldenlion, Golden Genie, Bigwins Games Tech, Games & More, Gladiator Holding and R. Bostock Enterprises, those sanctioned during the first half of the year, all of them with five million euros.

The DGOJ has also detected serious infringements in another 2 operators in the online gambling and betting sector during the first six months of 2024. The resolutions considered “serious” are directed at operators that do operate with a license, but that incur in some type of typified infringement. As can be seen in the DGOJ records, the companies Codere and Electraworks are the ones sanctioned. In these cases, the two fines together amount to 325,000 euros.

As a result of the latest amendment to the LRJ, which establishes that serious and very serious administrative infringements will be published on the DGOJ website, the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumption and Agenda 2030 has made public the sanctioning resolutions that have become final since July 2021. Since then, the number of published sanctions amounts to 154 (19 in the second half of 2021; 73 in 2022; 30 in the first half of 2023; 17 in the second half of 2023 and 15 in the first half of 2024) and has imposed fines for a total value of more than 398 million euros.