DGOJ, the Directorate General of Gambling in Spain, has revealed further plans for player protections and centralised monitoring controls to be applied to the digital environments of Spanish online gambling licences. 

The update coincides with the Directorate renewing its certification under the National Security Scheme (ENS), Spain’s central information system for public services and government agencies.

The regulator needs this renewal in order to test a principal project of the 2023 Royal Decree on Gambling Environments. This project is the deployment of a ‘Centralised Monitoring System’ tracking player activity across Spanish online gambling.

Since 2022, Spanish licences have been instructed to self-manage deposit limits independently at a limit of €600 a day. The centralised system will allow DGOJ to verify each customer deposit transacted with individual licences. 

According to the draft proposals, the default limits are set at €600 per day, €1,500 per week, and €3,000 per month. SBC Noticias reports that “new monitoring will require verification of each deposit to ensure the player maintains a margin within the established limits”.

The system is yet to be tested, but DGOJ is confident it will provide “individual mechanisms” for customers to reduce limits. Licensees must remind customers of their right to limit deposits and time on platforms on each log-in.

The application of universal deposit limits forms part of the DGOJ’s technical commitment to ensure Spanish gambling consumers are protected by the centralised monitoring system.

Attached to the new monitoring system will be the launch of a new Federal Self-Exclusion Scheme for problem gamblers. This new protection is designed for problem gambling interventions and to provide direct treatment support across Spain’s 17 autonomous communities.

 The DGOJ maintains its ambitions to launch an AI algorithm to trace 60 live variable indicators of problem gambling risks. The algorithm is viewed as the headline project of the Royal Decree of gambling environments, to deliver as  AI will track real-time patterns linked to problem gambling behaviour and enable operators to intervene early.

In an update provided to delegates of the Gaming in Spain Conference in June, the DGOJ noted that it had begun the project based on XGBoost machine learning algorithms.

However, this September, the Directorate launched a public consultation for feedback from IT, gaming and tech stakeholders on inputs, data and intelligence needed to engineer the algorithm.

The DGOJ believes that this project, which is backed by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs of Spain, will make it the first European regulator to apply AI to customer interventions around gambling harm.

The Ministry of Consumer Affairs of Spain maintains that the Royal Decree of Gambling Environments provides the mandate for Spain to have the toughest surveillance of gambling licences in Europe. 

As it stands, the DGOJ has yet to deliver on any technical project sought by the Royal Decree.

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