DGOJ, Spain’s Directorate General of Gambling, has begun testing its key project to implement a cross-operator deposit limit system.
The phase gives DGOJ-licensed operators six months to test the system and prepare for its full launch, scheduled for 25 March 2027, a ‘provisional date’.
The project is considered the key initiative of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs’ wider overhaul of gambling protections under the mandate of the Royal Decree on Gambling Environments.
Authorised in 2023, the timetable was set by Royal Decree 520/2026, published in Spain’s Official State Gazette on 25 June.
The decree requires the DGOJ to provide operators with a test version six months before the system becomes mandatory. Technical specifications for connecting to the centralised system will be issued to licences by the DGOJ.
As such, testing begins on a new ‘centralised system’ that will count and record all customer deposits across all online licences to ensure the mandatory limits of €700 per day, €1,750 per week and €3,300 over four weeks.
The Ministry of Consumer Affairs backs the project as critical for addressing protection gaps for Spanish gambling consumers and to provide a central control for the DGOJ in its oversight of online licences.
As cited, “each operator currently monitors deposit limits separately, so a customer with several accounts can deposit more across the market. The government says around one-third of active online players use more than one operator.”
Operators will have to check the DGOJ’s central system before accepting a deposit. If a payment would take the player above their combined limit, the operator must reject it and notify the customer.
Customers can lower their limits immediately, but an increase or removal can only take effect after three working days, and authorisation by a licence.
Projects with no roadmap
The DGOJ remains confident it can deliver its wider programme of player protection measures alongside the cross-operator deposit system. Its work includes a common mechanism for identifying risky gambling behaviour, which would build on operators’ existing duties to monitor players and intervene when risks emerge.
Further aspects of the Decree on Gambling Environments include a central database for customers under 24 and forthcoming mandatory affordability checks – of which no plans have been presented to licences.
Questions remain over how the DGOJ will put that mechanism into operation across the licensed market. The regulator has presented its proposed detection model, while the 2023 safer gambling decree already requires operators to send specific messages to players identified as gambling intensively or displaying risky behaviour.
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