SPAIN: This is how online operators recover promotions and their communications with customers

This article 37 of Royal Decree-Law 11/20, of March 31, the Spanish Government announced the measures to restrict commercial communications of gaming entities that operate in the Spanish market and that are regulated by Law 13/2011, the main Gambling Law in the country.

A set of actions aimed at "avoiding that health risks may be generated in the population and aggravating the problems related to gambling in the population that already suffered from them" which translated into the practical suspension of advertising in the media - limited at dawn - and to eliminate any form of "call to action" by operators with their customers.

After a few hours of stupefaction, the operators proceeded in record time to make most of their advertising elements disappear - both on their own web pages and on social networks, the media, agencies that carry out external campaigns or their social networks - in addition to trying readjust their communication protocols with their clients, leaving them practically a passive service for the solution of questions and user support.

Limitation on information and communications with the player

The aforementioned article 37 of Royal Decree-Law 11/20, of March 31, was clear enough that operators since the entry into force of the Decree -a day later- eliminated all forms of advertising activity in any medium or medium , that in some way directly or indirectly promoted the gaming activities offered.

Thus, from one day to the next, the operators' web pages replaced the promotional bonuses and banners with very generic messages, disabled the "promotions" sections, eliminated the actions aimed at promoting their products (eliminating "improved fees", calendars). of tournaments, prizes awarded ... etc.). Failure to comply with this new reality would mean a serious infringement, so the new legal framework left the sector orphaned for the first time with one of its great assets: its powerful marketing machinery.

Since this past Thursday, June 11, we are already witnessing the progressive recovery of all these communications and acquisition and loyalty actions that are so important to these companies:

• Rakeback (the return of commissions in poker operators) returns and special tournaments are also scheduled again for players who have a certain status in the room. And it is that in online poker, Tournament Tickets, Freerolls and the rewards to their players are - together with bonuses - the differentiating element and that explains the commercial success of the operator.
• In casino and betting there are also loyalty programs and promotions based on reward systems.

• Also related to the profile of its players, communications with VIP players are reestablished in casinos, betting houses and online poker rooms.
• Welcome offers reappear: welcome bonuses, reload bonuses, improved odds, free bets, tournament tickets ...
• Although the live broadcasts of events had not been interrupted in sports betting, the resumption of La Liga Santander has served to give a new promotional boost to live betting and streaming broadcasts offered by operators such as Sportium.

No external advertising

In addition to closing the door on communications with their own clients and limiting their purchasing power for new players, the exceptional measures of the Royal Decree - which in principle were to be in force until the Alarm State was lifted, were also prevented the broadcast of commercial radio and television communications (including on-demand services when they are distinguishable and separable), except in the time slot between 1 and 5 in the morning.

To this were logically added all those ways of publicizing the brand that require the most investment and that already had enormous amounts of money invested: the suspension of the soccer league and the Endesa basketball league made it easy to comply with the elimination of any advertising support related to sports sponsorship contracts. But since this weekend, there has been no problem for the eight First Division and twelve Second Division teams to wear the logos of these brands.

We have also been able to see how the media -especially the sports media- both in their paper versions and online recovered advertising from operators; something they could not do during the 70 days of previous Alarm Status.

We also see how advertising actions with brand ambassadors return, both on the main pages of the operators and for example in the case of online poker with the popular broadcasts or streams on twitch or youtube where poker players show their skills to hundreds of viewers .

Affiliates also return to normal

From Poker10.com, one of the most relevant poker news portals in the Spanish scene and number one in the amount of daily content, it is explained that after making the appropriate legal consultations with the General Directorate for the Regulation of the Game, it was confirmed that the Poker-related information may be considered "direct or indirect advertising of the game, including merely informative tournament results"; immediately deciding to take the decision to completely close the website and wait for 71 days for the repeal of the aforementioned Article 37 and its measures to restrict commercial gaming communications.

Those who also completely removed their advertising and left their websites without content were affiliates who have well-positioned Google portals for searches related to casino games and online slot machines, highlighting, for example, businesses dedicated to making reviews of dozens of slots available in the Spanish market.

The tipsters (betting tipsters), as visible in messaging applications as Telegram or in social networks and specialized platforms, although it is true that they decreased their activity for obvious reasons and reduced promotions related to operators as much as possible; The truth is that they continued to keep their channels updated and did not hesitate to continue publishing forecasts as the sports competitions were resumed.