Spain’s DGOJ says the main gambling risk is now inside the regulated market

Spain’s Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego (DGOJ) is shifting the regulatory conversation. Mikel Arana said the biggest challenges are no longer just the black market, but problems that sit inside the licensed market itself — a useful signal for PSPs and operators that compliance now means more than just blocking unlicensed traffic.

1. Arana made the comments at an industry gambling event in Europe, while stressing that illegal gambling remains a relevant challenge and that the DGOJ continues to devote significant resources to fighting it. The point, though, was clear: Spain’s current regulatory pressure is increasingly focused on how the authorised market behaves.
2. The DGOJ is working on a system of joint deposit limits. The aim is to stop players from bypassing operator-level limits by spreading activity across multiple accounts on different platforms. In practice, that means the old “we have a limit on our site” argument stops working once the same user can multiply exposure across several licensed operators.
3. The second tool is a common mechanism for detecting risky behaviour, built using real gambling data. The idea is to improve early identification of potential problem gambling cases and strengthen the player-protection measures already required under current rules. Arana described it as a pioneering initiative, which suggests Spain wants to set a technical benchmark within the European regulatory environment.
4. Spain is also joining a joint institutional declaration with France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland and Switzerland to step up oversight of sports betting and prediction markets during the FIFA World Cup 2026. That matters because major sporting events tend to bring higher transaction volumes, sharper scrutiny, and more compliance pressure on licensed flows.
5. At the national level, the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs and 2030 Agenda will intensify monitoring of the online betting market during the tournament. Licensed operators will be watched closely for compliance with licence obligations, advertising rules and player-protection requirements, while platforms operating outside the rules are also explicitly in scope.