ICE Barcelona 2025: The DGOJ promotes international debate on safe and secure gambling

The Director General of Gaming Regulation, Mikel Arana, was in charge of opening the first of the major forums at ICE Barcelona, on Monday 20 January at 09:30 in room CC5.1 of the fair.

He participated alongside the Dutch regulator in the panel entitled ‘Cooperation, Conversation, Divergence: Global Trends in Gaming Regulation’, where Arana discussed, alongside leading international experts, the main regulatory trends and challenges that will shape the coming years.

Key themes of the session included:

• Differences and similarities between regulatory approaches in markets such as Spain, the UK and the Netherlands, among others.
• The increasing regulatory fragmentation and the importance of international dialogue between regulators, where regulators are heading and how this will affect the sector, how to balance global regulatory operations with localised policy decisions, and the role of the DGOJ in the roundtable.

The DGOJ at the round table on the regulatory framework for gambling in Spain

In addition to Mikel Arana's intervention, the DGOJ will also be represented at ICE Barcelona by Cecilia Pastor Pons, Deputy Director General of Inspection of the DGOJ and Eugenio Álvarez Fernández, Deputy Director General of Regulation of the DGOJ, who will participate in a round table on Tuesday 21 January at 16:30 in room CC4.2.

This session will focus on how to deal with a changing regulatory framework. It will also discuss the recent Supreme Court ruling that partially annulled the advertising restrictions of some articles of Royal Decree 958/2020, and the government's strategies to reinforce control of the sector, with innovative measures such as:

• Regulation of ‘loot boxes’ and identity verification in video games.
• Centralised registration of players and mandatory risk profiles.

The Directorate General for the Regulation of Gambling at ICE Barcelona

The DGOJ's participation in ICE Barcelona 2025 reflects Spain's commitment to ensuring a balanced regulatory framework that promotes safe gambling, both nationally and internationally.

The DGOJ delegation, which includes Justo Sancho, director of the safe gaming division, will hold meetings with regulators from the Autonomous Regions of Spain, other European countries and Latin America.

ICE Barcelona will not only be a space for debate, but also a platform to promote global cooperation and strengthen international alliances in the sector.