The Royal Decree for Commercial Communication of Gambling Activities may come into force this month in Spain. The measure would prevent sports betting companies from supporting the Spanish Football Championship, LaLiga.
However, LaLiga, the State Lotteries and State Betting Society (SELAE) and the Spanish Radio and Television Corporation recently reached an agreement. According to SBC Notícias, SELAE will be one of the partnerships for the exhibition of the best moments of the matches of the national competition, involving teams from the 1st and 2nd divisions.
The SELAE Committee also closed contracts with the Spanish Federation of Pelota for 35 thousand euros and another with the Royal Tennis Federation for 50 thousand euros. In addition, the organization established arrangements with the Handball Federations (50 thousand euros), Gymnastics (35 thousand euros), Hockey (75 thousand euros) and Swimming (35 thousand euros).
However, these links generated controversy in the segment, since the Spanish Association of Digital Games (Jdigital) – which comprises about 80% of the country’s operators and is supported by EGBA (European Association of Games and Betting) – stated that the Royal Decree is highly damaging to the private gambling market.
LaLiga and SELAE agreement was discussed at Summit Barcelona
“ONCE (Spanish lottery) and SELAE were the only operators that did not sign the Code of Conduct on Commercial Communication of Gambling Activity in June 2012 and that will also not be included in the new regulation”, revealed Santiago Asensi, managing partner Asensi Advogados, in the panel “Advertising blackout, what will happen to marketing in Spain?”, which took place at SBC Summit Barcelona – Digital.
“The industry, obviously, will not accept this Royal Decree”, also sentenced Andrea Vota, general director of Jdigital, representative of the Spanish gaming operators, when revealing that there is a basis to lead these complaints to a debate in the legal field.
 and the Spanish Corporation for Radio and Television have signed a recent partnership.){kind=link}