Directorate General for the Regulation of Gambling

COMMUNICATION ON THE REGULATION OF CROSS BETTING AND ONLINE GAMING MACHINES

After studying and analysing the various arguments received during the consultation period set up for this purpose, the Directorate General for Gambling Regulation has reached the following conclusions:

• Creating a set of rules  will reinforce active fighting against illegal gambling. This, in turn, will diminish the existing illegal market for both types of games, one of the main threats to the protection of participants, particularly those who  are most vulnerable.
   
• Once these games are regulated, they will become subject to prior participant verification procedures, access control for minors and self-excluded persons, access control for related persons and other subjective interdictions for potential participants.
   
• Their regulation will improve the implementation of the measures added to Law 13/2011 on the fight against money laundering and on other guiding principles such as the integrity of events, protection of users, responsible gambling, without the need to make further modifications.
   
• Both types of games can be regulated in their online form without affecting effective competition in the gambling market as a whole.
   
• No conflicts have been detected with Spanish regulations, which are intended to regulate every mode and type of game so that these can be brought into line with their principles. Thus, the Gambling Act, Law 13/2011 of 27 May does not mention online gaming machines in a restrictive way, while repeated references to cross betting show the legislative body wished to include it in state regulations.

Consequently, the Directorate General considers it appropriate to regulate cross betting and online machine gaming. The two games will be regulated consecutively; first cross betting, then online machine gaming. In both cases, said process comprises the following stages:

• Creating a draft ministerial order and a regulatory impact assessment report
• Public consultation
• Holding bilateral Committee meetings between the central government and the regional governments of Catalonia and Andalusia
• Agreement of MINHAP State Secretariats
• Report by the MINHAP's Technical General Secretariat
• Final approval of the ministerial order