The Spanish Senate demands rules for online lottery
With 163 votes in favor, 88 against, and seven abstentions, the Plenary Session of the Spanish Senate supported a motion requiring the Government to establish rules for online lottery sales. The text, presented by the Basque Group, was published in the Official Gazette of the Cortes Generales.
The underlying objective is to open a dedicated channel for the network of retail outlets. Currently, anyone wishing to buy lottery tickets online must do so through the website of the State Society of Lotteries and State Betting (SELAE). The motion seeks to allow administrations and other collaborators to sell these products from their own digital environment or by using authorized third-party platforms, without depending on the state portal.
For this to happen, a concrete instrument is needed. The text urges the Executive to promptly promote a resolution from the Directorate General for the Regulation of Gambling (DGOJ) that establishes the conditions a collaborator must meet to sell lottery tickets from their own website, from an application, or from any other electronic support that is part of this network.
This opening comes with conditions. The motion requests that any approved scheme incorporate protection mechanisms for minors and vulnerable consumers, a sensitive point when purchases move from the counter to a screen.
There is also an economic demand addressed to the state operator. The motion asks the Government to update what SELAE pays its network for each sale, a discussion that the retail sector has been having for years.
Senator María Dolores Etxano summarized it in the debate. The digital channel is already functioning in practice; what is missing is for someone to regulate it, and that response, she said, has been delayed for too long.
SELAE is the state-owned company that manages major lottery games in Spain and distributes them through a network of retail outlets across the country. The regulation of online gambling, however, is in the hands of the DGOJ, the body dependent on the Ministry of Finance that grants licenses and supervises digital activity, so any move to the electronic channel for the physical network must comply with its regulatory framework.
Tags: Spanish Senate, SELAE, Directorate General for the Regulation of Gambling, online lottery sales