DGOJ prioritises RG efforts in new three-year strategy
Spanish gambling regulator Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego (DGOJ) has published its new three-year strategy, setting out plans to ensure the industry operates in a socially responsible manner while allowing licensees to develop innovative new products and services.
The new Charter of Services, which comes into effect this year and runs until 2022, sees the DGOJ set out four priority areas for the period. It will look to ensure a safe and secure gaming environment for players; encourage licensees to innvovate across all channels; improve responsible gambling controls, and have a positive impact on Spanish society.
To enhance responsible gambling controls, the DGOJ will work alongside operators to develop new strategies to identify harm, such as studying patterns of behaviour that suggest problem behaviour. This will see it look ensure clear lines of communication between the licensee and its customers, allowing users to flag issues or settle disputes.
It will also launch initiatives to ensure players are properly informed of the importance of responsible play, as well as publishing updates on efforts to tackle gambling-related harms.
The regulator will also look to strengthen its anti-fraud safeguards to ensure gamblers do not become victims of crime. It will impose harsher sanctions on non-compliant operators, and will closely supervise those whose controls and processes are found to be deficient.
With gambling advertising an increasingly contentious issue in Spain, the DGOJ has also pledged to tightly monitor advertising by licensees.
Finally, it will look to encourage more operators to embrace omni-channel as part of a drive to encourage innvoation in the industry.
The Spanish online gambling market continues to grow, with the DGOJ earlier this week revealing a 20.1% year-on-year increase in revenue for the first quarter of the year.
Gross gaming revenue for the three months to March 31, 2019 amounted to €193.3m (£171.3m/$217.6m), up from €163.3m in the same period last year and an increase of 2.14% on €189.2m posted in the final quarter of 2018.