This Thursday, our editor Jacqueline Mecinas was able to speak with Andrea Vota, recently elected as the new CEO of Jdigital. As expected, much of the interview addressed the topic of the Royal Decree and its dire consequences.
Vota makes an objective and detailed analysis of the challenges that the online gaming sector must overcome, while being optimistic and affirming that it is never too late to achieve changes in perceptions. We share with our readers an interview without waste.
How did they contact you? Who proposed your name and profile?
First, thank you for this opportunity.
Contacts with Jdigital started in early 2020, after I left the company I was working for, I made myself available to the public affairs industry, which is basically what I have been doing in the last seven years. From that moment, conversations with Jdigital began. The association was seeking to further professionalize itself through the figure of a CEO who carried out the day-to-day.
As you can understand the pandemic and the entire COVID situation delayed the entire process and also decision-making, regarding the statutory changes that had to take place to incorporate this new figure. And, well, we have reached the date of July 16, which is when the Jdigital General Assembly is held and I was appointed as CEO of the association.
Mikel López de Torre continues with you?
Obviously, Jdigital, like any association, has statutory bodies, such as the Board of Directors, of which Mikel is the president, until September of this year. With the statutory changes that were proposed in the general assembly, was approved the rotation of the presidency, in other words, this figure remains permanently. To manage the day to day is the CEO;and, the presidency, which is a figure that is mandatory by law, will rotate, every three months we will change the president. Thus, Mikel is outgoing president and also incoming president, during this July-September quarter.
You land in this field, in the industry that is as it is... what is your perception? I suppose that from the outside you were seeing it in a way, on arrival you have found the interior of a great problem...
As I was telling you, these conversations started at the end of January, which is why all this time I have been studying the sector and I have been closely watching the news, especially the ones related with politics and regulations. In the end, I think that's an impressive part of the online gaming sector. And, obviously, it's also born from a lack of good reputation of the sector towards public opinion.
I have come across a story of online gaming that does not coincide with reality, I do not think that online gaming in Spain is in any way a problem. That is what the sector must dismantl, not only with data but also through good practices. I know that our activity can generate some type of problem and that is why the sector is self-regulating, fostering responsible gaming ... I think that right now, the most important fight must be against illegal gaming.
What we have seen with the silence that was imposed, what has happened by prohibiting the advertising of companies such as those represented by Jdigital, is that there has been a significant growth of illegal websites. This means that the player doesn't have access to transparent information because they are banning advertising from legal companies that comply with the regulations. The player could target an illegal offer, and because it is illegal, there is no transparency in terms of information, nor is there control by public bodies.
What worries us regarding the approval of the Royal Decree is that the demand for illegal offers increases in a very important way. Something that obviously worries us and will have to be canceled.
Do you think that the DGOJ and the Ministry of Consumer Affairs are aware of the increase in illegal gaming? Because they do not admit that there is that rise. They say they have cut many illegal web pages
The story that has been built is that the problem here is gaming and what it can generate to be locked up at home due to a pandemic.
The issue is that they want to look only at some numbers, which do not support the story that they want to tell us from this general direction, and meanwhile studies such as the one published this month, of the National Plan on Drugs, said that 86,6% of the people who answered the survey reported not having participated in online gaming before or after the lookdown.
This means that there are some numers that don't support the arguments of the DGOJ to reach this type of regulation, to the draft that they have presented to us.
In consequence, I do not think that they have focused on the increase of legal websites, perhaps they are not interested in that because it doesn't effectively support the arguments that have led to the approval of that Royal Decree, but at the same time they publish data from the DGOJ that tell us something else.
During the pandemic, a decrease in the frequency of online money play is detected.
From this point of view, it is necessary to reflect on where the problem is and what are the problems that can generate a regulation such as the one they want to approve. In our opinion, a significant number of illegal websites have been closed in two months, and the 2019 numbers tell us otherwise. The number of illegal websites closed in a year is much less than the number of closed websites in the lookdown months.
Do you think that the government, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs is permeable to all this? It seems that they have a mission, which is to approve the Royal Decree, and they do not care about the data ... Is it viable for the sector to make itself heard?
We have the same feeling, it is a decision that has been made and there is no going back in that regard. I'm absolutely convinced that social dialogue is key to developing any type of legislation. Stakeholders should be able to participate, have an opinion, sit down with the administration and present their arguments. Then, in the end, the final decision will not be made by the companies, although we have been regulating ourselves for a long time. The update of the sector code of conduct that was made in January is very recent. Consequently, companies have anticipated public decision-makers.
The issue is that there has been no progress in regulation, here we are talking about prohibition. This is to condemn the online gaming sector to absolute silence. Prohibition of any type of advertising, prohibition of communicating the commercial offer, and that is something that affects companies like ours because logically, as online companies, communication has to be done in those environments.
If we are prohibited from communicating our product, our offer, obviously a sector is being violated. Our will is to speak with everyone, not only with the DGOJ, this Royal Decree has a wide range of implications. Effects on the economy, due to the decrease in income; tax effects. Also, it can have health related consequences, because when the illegal web offer increases, the most vulnerable are not protected. Also issues that have to do with free market and competition.
We are facing several open fronts, and I think that to approve such strict and impressive regulations it would be necessary to do a little active listening with all the departments, because as I was saying, the implications are many in many areas.
END OF THE FIRST PART
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