Spanish Gaming Commission

The Spanish Gaming Commission (Comisión nacional del Juego) is the regulator responsible for licensing online gambling operators in Spain.

Established in 2012, the Spanish Gaming Commission is a relatively new figure in the world of online gambling regulation, but the commission has shown its determination to make sure online gambling within Spain is fair and managed responsibly.

In this post, we’re going to look at who the Spanish Gaming Commission are, what they do, and what their complaints procedure looks like.

About The Spanish Gaming Commission

The Spanish Gaming Commission is part of the Ministry of Finance, and the commission is charged with regulation, authorization, superivision, control, and – where appropriate – sanctioning gambling activities throughout Spain.

The commission was established in 2012, and has a number of duties including:

Studying the impact of gambling regulations;
Inspecting gaming activities (as well as technical systems) used by operators throughout Spain;
Reviewing gambling license applications, and approving/denying them where appropriate;
Working with other regulatory bodies around the world;
Carrying out investigations into unlicensed/unlawful gambling operations;
Studying new ways of preventing problem gambling, and ensuring players are gambling within their means.

Like most of the world’s gaming regulators, the Spanish Gaming Commission is broken down into different departments, and you can see the organization chart of the commission below:

Directorate General for the Regulation of Gambling (DGOJ)
Subdirectorate General for Game Regulation
Sub-Directorate General of Game Inspection
Subdirectorate General of Management and Institutional Relations

The Spanish Gambling Commission take illegal gambling operations very seriously, and they work closely with Spanish law enforcement to ensure any unlicensed gambling operators are shut down and brought to justice.

License Requirements

In order to receive a license from the Spanish Gambling Commission, operators must be able to prove they operate in good faith. There are a number of legal, financial, and technical requirements, which we’ll look at below.

Legal Requirements

All operators who wish to apply for a license must have a limited company, with a registered office in a State residing in the European Economic Area. The operator must have at least 100,000 euros (which is used for the application of a general license), and this fee is paid when submitting the application. Operators must also be registered on the Mercantile Register, if based in Spain, or an equivalent register if the operator is an overseas company.

Financial Requirements

All operators must be able to produce appropriate financial statements as required by the commission. Annual accounts must also be prepared and presented, and a statement on the global volume of business over the past three years must be available. The operator should also be able to prove where its funds came from.

Technical Requirements

The Spanish Gambling Commission require proof that all of the technical systems used by an operator are capable of handling player activity. The commission requires operators to state where their technical systems are based, and, where appropriate, how these systems are maintained.

Operators are also required to implement a specific website with a domain name under the ‘.es’ domain. Players who reside outside of Spain, may be redirected to another domain, but Spanish players must always play at a site using a .es domain.

All technical systems must be approved by the commission, and this is to ensure that games being offered are fair, and performing as they should be. Operators must also be able to prove the randomness of any random number generator technology used at the site.

The commission also expects operators to have adequate security procedures in place to ensure that all systems are safe. Technical safety is something else that the commission require operators to get approved.

Operators also need to be able to identify all participants using their services, and this is done in the form of a Know Your Customer (KYC) check. The regular anti-money laundering and prevention of underage gambling rules are also in force, with the Spanish Gambling Commission key to ensure that operators only accept players of a legal age to place wagers, with funds that have been legitimately acquired.

Top Spanish Gaming Commission Licensed Casinos

Many of the world’s biggest online gambling operators now hold licenses from the Spanish Gambling Commission. You can view some of the top-rated sites below:

How To Check If a License is Valid

All online gambling sites licensed by the Spanish Gambling Commission are required to display the commission’s seal at the bottom of their webpage. Clicking this seal will take you directly to the commission’s website.

If you wish to verify a license direct at the commission’s website, you can do so through their Licensed Operators page. This is an up-to-date list of all licensees, and allows you to view all licenses currently issued by the Spanish Gambling Commission.

Complaints Procedure

Any website licensed by the Spanish Gambling Commission must offer their services in a fair and honest way. If you have a complaint with an operator, you are first advised to make a complaint directly with the website in question.

If the operator fails to deal with your complaint in a way you’re satisfied with, you can make a complaint directly with the commission. You can find out more about how the Spanish Gambling Commission deals with complaints here.