Official language: Spanish
Population: 46,157,822
Currency: Euro (EUR)

Current Exchange Rate
1 GBP = 1.0681 EUR
1 USD = 0.6754 EUR

Quick links
Online casinos in Spain
Online poker in Spain
Online sportsbooks in Spain
Online bingo in Spain

Gambling in Spain
Gambling is legal in Spain, but for most of the last 150 years, it was limited to basic lotteries, and all legal gambling was strictly controlled by the state. It was not until 1977 that the Spanish government legalized skill-based gambling. Games of chance like slot machines and other similar sorts of gambling were not legalized until 1981. Today, the Spanish gambling industry is booming, and Spain is one of the most gambling nations in the world, spending twice as much on gambling each year as the UK.

Further legislation in 2008 divided Spain into 17 regions, and each region was given the power to grant their own gambling licenses. There are today over 40 casinos across Spain, along with more than a quarter of a million gambling machines – only the UK has more. Sportsbooks also sprouted up after the 2008 changes, and legal sports gambling is quickly becoming extremely popular across the country.

Online Gambling in Spain
The legislation regarding gambling online in Spain is currently changing. A few years ago, there were no specific laws that regulated online gambling. Beginning in 2002, however, the Spanish government began moving towards the regulation and legalization of internet gambling.

The legislative changes to Spain's online gambling laws are still in progress. In early 2009, much work was done towards the goal of legal internet gambling in Spain. Soon, Spanish online gambling licenses will be available to EU-based operators. This means that players in Spain will have a full range of Spanish gambling websites available to them. The change is happening quickly, and results are expected by late 2009.