GAMING REPORT – IBERIAN PENINSULA – Focus on Spain and Portugal at European Gaming Congress VE (#EGC2020VE)

Spain and Portugal in focus at European Gaming Congress VE (Virtual Edition).

#EGC2020ve – You may already know this, but Spanish and Portuguese are classified as a Romance language, along with Catalan, Italian, French, and Romanian. Both are beautiful languages with a wide global influence on business and culture.

However, one does stop and reflect on the curse words that have been going on when the Spanish Minister of Consumer Affairs Alberto Garzón has proposed a series of measures that will toughen up regulations on betting companies, including restrictions to sponsorship agreements and advertising exposure.

This happened 2 months ago and the ban follows the approval of laws as part of Spain’s “Royal Decree on Advertising” which currently permits a four-hour advertising window for betting companies, but does not authorize any exposure out of the timeframe.

In addition to the ban on shirt sponsorships, the new decree will prevent gambling companies from being allowed to sponsor stadium names nor any other aspect associated with the teams.

Also in Spain, CONFAD (Spain’s National Commission to Combat the Manipulation of Sports Competitions and Betting Fraud) has published its action plan for 2020/2021, outlining 21 directives to safeguard the integrity of Spanish sports.

Supporting CONFAD directives, Spain’s Consumer Affairs Ministry states that the action plan will be implemented by the DGOJ and further coordinated with Spain’s National Sports Council, federal police force, and Guardia Civil.

In Portugal, the RJO (Regime Jurídico dos Jogos e Apostas Online) received constant and heavy criticism within the gambling community during its implementation procedure, with the special gambling tax the main subject of criticism and within this context.  However, the online gambling tax regime has recently been amended and the Portuguese State Budget for 2020 states that the tax regime will be reassessed within a maximum period of two years.

The SRIJ (Serviço de Regulação e Inspeção de Jogos) has been also closely monitoring social games that are made available in Portugal and that use themes similar to the ones subject to regulation (for example, casino games, slot machines, poker or bingo), to assess whether these games should be subject to the licensing regime provided under the RJO.

As you may see, there is plenty of news to share about the Spanish and Portuguese gambling industry, but we will leave that to the expert who will join the “GAMING REPORT: IBERIAN PENINSULA” panel discussions at the virtual edition of European Gaming Congress 2020.

The virtual edition of European Gaming Congress 2020 is taking place between 6-7 October and gathers top names of the gaming industry who will present their insights to create Europe’s largest gaming compliance gathering.

THE EASY AND FREE REGISTRATION PROCESS IS SPONSORED BY ALTENAR AND YOU CAN REGISTER FOR FREE HERE!

The conference covers +28 jurisdictions and you have the opportunity to dive into quality information about the Iberian peninsula with Óscar Madureira (Senior Associate at Rato, Ling, Lei & Cortés) and Arcangelo Lonoce (Head of Business Development – Europe at Habanero Systems).

The panel discussion will be moderated by Fernando Saffores (Founder & Director at Focus Gaming News) and promises to bring a wealth of Latin information.

You can find more details about the speakers’ and moderator on the official website of the conference: www.europeangamingcongress.com

AS MENTIONED ABOVE THE EASY AND FREE REGISTRATION PROCESS IS SPONSORED BY ALTENAR AND YOU CAN REGISTER HERE NOW!