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Summary:

The private gambling industry is an opaque interest group that lobbies both administrations for a favourable regulatory framework and civil society to encourage gambling. The aim of both is to increase their profits. In Spain, private gambling was illegal until the approval of Royal Decree Law 16/1977 of 25 February. Despite legalisation and subsequent regulation, the private gambling sector is a historically stigmatised business. The reasons for this stigma can be reduced to two. The first is that it is an industry with a large volume of business that hides opaque practices. The second is that private gambling is responsible for the fact that there are currently 120,000 gambling addicts in Catalonia. As a result, it is stigmatised and distrusted by the population. In order to continue to operate and generate more profits, the private gambling industry has implemented various strategies to reverse the stigma and present itself as a legal, transparent and socially responsible sector. Stigmatisation cannot be a ploy by the gambling industry to articulate a set of opaque and unethical practices.

Reversing the consequences of the restrictions imposed by Royal Decree 958/2020 of 3 November on the commercial communication of gambling activities. A law awaited by many sectors, but criticised by the gambling industry because its articles focus on prohibition. The main elements of the law are: a ban on sports sponsorship (T-shirts, names of teams, stadiums and sports competitions), a ban on bonuses, a ban on the appearance of celebrities in advertising, a ban on advertising on TV and radio outside the time slot between 1:00am and 5:00am, a ban on advertising on the Internet, an obligation for tipsters to publish all the results of their bets. Fines of between 100,000 and one million euros will be imposed for non-compliance. The new law “de facto” eliminates private gambling advertising. This law opens a new scenario in the field of private gambling. Most articles provide for a moratorium between May and August 2021. It is therefore crucial to know how the gambling lobby is moving to circumvent the restrictions of the new gambling law. The contacts between the gambling lobby and certain politicians have been proven. We are still a long way from total transparency in this sector. How many contacts does the gambling industry have with politicians in Catalonia and the Barcelona area? And beyond the quantitative dimension, the most important thing is the qualitative impact. What has the gambling industry obtained from the administrations thanks to its lobbying? And above all, what will it get? What actions will the gambling industry take in order to continue to make profits? These are the questions to which our research provides answers.

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