Online Casino Licensing in Spain: What the DGOJ Actually Requires

A DGOJ-licensed online gambling operator uses a “.es” domain — Ley 13/2011 classifies offering internet gambling outside the designated .es site as a very serious infringement. The domain alone should not be treated as definitive proof of current licensing status, though — consumers should also check the operator and its listed domains directly against the DGOJ’s official operator register, since operators, corporate entities and licence arrangements can change.

Spain has stepped up enforcement against illegal online gambling. By 25 November 2025, the DGOJ reported 58 serious and very serious sanctions during 2025 totalling nearly €111 million. In the same enforcement round, six foreign operators that were operating without a Spanish licence each received a €5 million fine and were subject to blocking. Separately, on 20 November 2025, gambling regulators from Germany, Austria, France, Great Britain, Italy, Portugal and Spain agreed to exchange information to strengthen the fight against illegal online gambling.

RGIAJ (Registro General de Interdicciones de Acceso al Juego) is Spain’s national register of people who have requested a gambling access ban. For online gambling, registration is communicated to licensed operators and prevents access to the relevant games. Registration is free and indefinite; the DGOJ states that cancellation may be requested after six months from registration, through the DGOJ’s electronic headquarters or specified in-person procedures.

Gambling prizes are treated as capital gains that do not arise from the transfer of an asset, and are included in Spain’s general IRPF tax base rather than the savings base. For gambling accounts, the Spanish Tax Agency (AEAT) calculates the relevant gain as the positive global difference between prizes obtained and contributions made during the tax year across the taxpayer’s gambling accounts — losses can reduce gains from the same tax year, but losses exceeding that year’s gains are not counted and cannot be carried forward. Online gambling winnings generally are not subject to the special withholding regime that applies to certain state lottery, ONCE and Cruz Roja prizes, so players need to account for their gambling results directly in their IRPF return. If gambling is your only source of income (alongside other capital gains or rental income), you must declare once net winnings exceed €1,000 for the year. If you already have an obligation to file an IRPF return because of your employment or other income, gambling gains must also be included in the return; the separate €1,000 exemption for certain taxpayers who are otherwise below the filing threshold does not apply simply because the gambling amount itself is small.

DGOJ licensing matters for more than the legality of the operator itself. A licensed operator is subject to Spanish regulatory requirements and supervision, while an operator without the required Spanish authorisation does not provide the same regulatory framework or consumer protections. Keeping complete records of deposits, withdrawals, stakes, winnings and losses is worth doing regardless of platform, since good documentation is what actually determines how smoothly a tax query gets resolved — and separately, Spanish gambling law itself treats using IP-masking tools to access geo-restricted gambling activity from Spain as its own minor infraction under Article 41(f) of the Ley del Juego, independent of any tax question.