SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Valencia becomes the latest Spanish autonomous region to update its laws governing gambling establishments operating within its municipality.
Concluding its plenary session, Valencia’s municipal government ‘Generalitat Valenciana‘ confirmed that it had given approval to drafting the ‘Ley del Juego’ bill, moving to establish measures preventing minors from accessing gambling halls and implementing further support programs tackling problem gambling.
In its mandate, the council underlines that Valencia requires a comprehensive makeover of its gambling code, which has not been updated since 1988.
Furthermore, Valencia’s municipal government seeks to develop a ‘single regulatory text’ updating legal and fiscal requirements for gambling venues, which must ‘adapt to new social, economic and technological realities’.
Laws related to operating land-based gambling venues are sanctioned by the regional governments of Spain’s seventeen autonomous communities, who determine individual standards and business requirements.
Moving to revamp its gambling frameworks, Valencia will seek to establish tougher ‘street-level controls’ supervising public access to licensed gambling venues.
In turn, the Valencian government will significantly increase penalties on venues that do not undertake age verifications or background-check vulnerable customers against its municipal self-exclusion registry.
Further controls will see Valencia ban the ‘cashing of prizes in bars’, limiting the services of licensed gambling venues, with the regional government further confirming that it will reclassify the authorisation of which premises can operate ‘type-b’ fruit machines.
Scrutiny of gambling establishments has intensified across Spain this 2019, with the governments of Madrid and Euskadi revising laws on gambling premises, customer verification and marketing of services.
Last week, Barcelona’s city council confirmed that it would not allow for any more gambling expansions for a period of one year, supporting the city’s addiction treatment networks.
