CeJuego demands Consumer Minister, DGOJ director dismissal
The Business Council of the Private Gaming Sector in Spain (CeJuego) called for the dismissal of the Minister of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs, and the 2030 Agenda, Pablo Bustinduy, and the Director General of Gaming Regulation (DGOJ), Mikel Arana. The employers' association accuses both of using public information in a “biased” manner to damage the image of private operators.
The complaint arose following the publication, on November 25, of a press release from the ministry detailing the sanctions imposed on legal and illegal operators during 2025. According to CeJuego, the statement unjustifiably omitted four sanctions applied in December 2024 to the State Society Lotteries and State Bets (SELAE) for allowing individuals registered in the self-exclusion registry to participate in their games. These fines amounted to 126,000 euros, a figure included in the total presented by the DGOJ but without mentioning the public operator.
For CeJuego, this omission shows that SELAE operates with a “lower level of control” as it is subject to more lenient requirements than the private sector. Its director general, Alejandro Landaluce, criticized that these types of actions “distort reality and erode the image of a legally established sector,” accusing the ministry of using partial information to “discredit the private operator.”
The association also denounced that the Government acts as “judge and party,” since it regulates and supervises companies that directly compete with SELAE. This, they claim, constitutes a conflict of interest that prevents fair conditions in the market. Therefore, CeJuego will submit a document to the National Commission on Markets and Competition (CNMC) to request its intervention.
They also questioned the headline of the official note: “Consumer Affairs sanctions 26 gaming operators with over 3 million euros for serious infractions: Betfair, 888, and Codere among those fined”. According to CeJuego, the message leads one to think that authorized operators received million-euro sanctions, when in reality the fines for licensed companies ranged between 17,500 and 125,000 euros. Of the total announced 33 million euros, 30 million correspond to sanctions on unlicensed operators, that is, illegal ones.
For the business organization, this situation is part of a “persecutory treatment” that the Ministry of Consumer Affairs would have maintained for years toward a sector that “has always sought dialogue.”
“In light of the improper and tendentious use of public data and repeated behavior that damages the image of legal private gaming in Spain, CeJuego requests the dismissal of the Minister of Consumer Affairs and the Director General of Gaming Regulation,” they concluded.
Tags: Spain, CEJuego, DGOJ, Spain betting, online betting Spain