Has the Spanish online gambling market suffered from a case of overregulation that could potentially take significant time to reverse? That is a suggestion made by Christian Lowe, Chief Operation Officer at Slot Java, when diving into the complexities of the market.
In addition to touching on the demoralising nature of this crackdown, as well as frustration of an illegal market uptake, confidence is stressed on the future prospects of the Spanish iGaming ecosystem.
However, capitalising on future opportunities within the country isn’t the only aspiration, with Lowe also revealing significant ambitions that he has for the brand across multiple Latin American jurisdictions.
SBC News: How would you assess the current standing of the Spanish market within the context of the wider European continent?
Christian Lowe: I would say that the current Spanish market suffers a bit from overregulation. The regulatory body (DGOJ) decided to ban all player bonuses and we saw a quick rise in players seeking out unregulated casinos.
The bonus ban was recently adapted, allowing bonuses again but with certain limitations. We think that is a step in the right direction but the upwards trend of the unregulated share of the Spanish casino market has still not seen a reversal.
Besides the headache of an outflow to the unregulated market, I would say that the market has a culture from brick-and-mortar venues, physical slot machines in bars and restaurants with classic titles which people look for online. This is very similar to the Italian market which we understand very well.
SBCN: A key trend of regulatory alterations has been evident within the gambling industry during recent times, and Spain has certainly been no exception. What difficulties has that posed for yourselves?
CL: First, let me start with the fact that it can be very demoralising for a hard-working team to see changes pushed by the regulatory body that you know will lead to players getting pushed into the unregulated environment, away from all protective measures that the regulated environment can offer.
We had a few of these cases for Spain, where we thought the regulator was taking things too far and clearly implemented measures which would push players to the unregulated environment, and clearly this was the case.
This can be a bit hard to shake from a motivation aspect, but at the end of the day you just must accept it. With that said, we are strong believers of the necessity of regulation, but it needs to be done with moderation, balance and data driven.
SBCN: When looking at the key challenges faced by Slotjava in the Spanish affiliate marketing space, how were these overcome?
CL: I would say that one of the challenges has been the technical aspect as we also target many markets in Latin America with Slotjava as these are Spanish speaking as well.
We overlooked this aspect when the site was launched back in 2019, we had to do a lot of technical backtracking and development to ensure that we could deliver a country specific experience to visitors while being compliant with local regulations.
Currently we are very happy with the technical work performed and the user experience is cutting edge.
SBCN: Related to these previous questions, do you envisage any further developments hitting the market during the coming year?
CL: There have been a lot of changes during the last three years. I believe that we have reached a pivot, and we don’t expect that many changes during 2025.
I can see some smaller adaptations when it comes to bonus limitations and player limits, but I don’t expect any groundbreaking changes.
SBCN: What do you envisage for the future of the Spanish gaming market, and how do you plan to capitalise on what is predicted to be an ever-growing space?
CL: We have a good position in Spain currently. We don’t expect the market to grow as fast as other European markets, but I think it will be a steady growth.
Spain is the fastest growing economy in Europe, combined with the fact that it has a strong culture within slot machines and casinos as entertainment while having extremely high internet penetration. This overall leads us to conclude that Spain is a market positioned for growth.
SBCN: The company also has interest within the Latin American market, could you talk us through your current standing and strategy within the region?
CL: This is a region we are very familiar with, we have been operating many countries in Latin America for many years. Affiliates and operators have since the last two years started to invest in this region.
There are a lot of things happening from a regulatory perspective. Brazil and Chile which are the biggest markets in the region is in the middle of a regulation and Peru recently regulated their market
SBCN: Delving deeper into the region, which markets are of a particular interest and how do you plan to achieve a lofty position within these?
CL: I would say that our core markets are Chile and Brazil where we already established a good position within Casino. Brazil is usually mentioned as a market where operators primarily focus on sports betting, rightfully so. Casino is a very small share of the total market.
We believe that the casino market will grow faster from a year over year perspective for the upcoming years and position ourselves for this.
We offer free to play slot machines as one of our primary products, Brazil does not have the same legacy as many other countries when it comes to traditional slot machines, they consume video bingo in the way other countries consume traditional slot machines. We also believe that this will change over time and are well positioned for this demand.