Impact of Spanish gambling regulations on online gambling behavior and marketing strategies

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-4742141/v1

Background. A large body of research has pointed out that advertising has an impact on gambling behavior. However, little is known about how gambling marketing regulations impact online gambling behavior and marketing expenditure. Recently, a Spanish law -the Royal Decree 958/2020- came into force, which, in general terms, limits the marketing of gambling products. The current study aimed to examine the effect of the Spanish Royal Decree 958/2020 on gambling behavior (i.e., new accounts, active accounts, deposits, and total money bet) and marketing expenditure (i.e., advertising, bonuses, affiliation, and sponsorship) based on data from the Directorate General for Regulation of Gambling. Methods. We used Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA) models to examine the impact of the implementation of Royal Decree 958/2020 on both online gambling behavior and marketing expenditure.

Results. The entry into force of the Spanish Royal Decree led to a permanent decrease in gambling behavior, in particular new accounts (-326k; p = .006) and total money bet (-€232M; p= .016). Additionally, regulatory measures had an impact on marketing strategies, specifically, reducing money earmarked for advertising (-€20M; p< .001), bonus (-€2.6M; p < .001) and sponsorship (-€5.3M; p< .001).

Conclusion. These findings demonstrate that regulatory measures aimed at limiting gambling advertising, bonuses, and sponsorships have an impact on new accounts and total money gambled. This study can serve as a model for other countries where gambling advertisements have not yet been regulated.

gambling

marketing

advertising

sponsorship

regulatory measures

Gambling is a widespread social activity worldwide, including in Spain, where past-year gambling participation reached 58.1% in the general population (20.1% among adolescents) [1], and its revenue increases exponentially [2, 3]. Gambling entails important consequences in terms of mental health (e.g., depression, anxiety) [4, 5], substance use [4], family and social relationships [6–9], and financial issues [10]. Consequently, interest in studying this addictive behavior has arisen in recent years with the aim of mitigating its impact on individuals’ well-being, particularly among adolescents and young people.

Traditional frameworks present an idiosyncratic model, focusing on the study of individual variables, such as sociodemographic characteristics (e.g., age, socioeconomic status), psychological variables (e.g., impulsive choice, mental health), or gambling-related variables (e.g., type of gambling), to explain the mechanism underlying the development of a gambling disorder [4, 5, 11]. However, recent research has attempted to understand gambling from a broader perspective by analyzing contextual, commercial, sociocultural, and environmental variables [9, 12–14]. One such variable is gambling marketing, which includes advertising, promotion (i.e., bonus), affiliate programs, and sponsorship.

A large body of research has shown that marketing has an impact on gambling behavior [15, 16], in particular among vulnerable populations, such as young people [17] and individuals with gambling disorder [18–20]. Studies have consistently shown that advertising leads to the normalization of gambling [21], increases loss of control, and reduces risk perception [22]. Moreover, advertising increases the probability of gambling, the time spent gambling, the gambling frequency, the amount of money gambled, and problem gambling [15, 23, 24].

There are several variables that might explain the impact of advertising on gambling behavior. Both quantitative and qualitative studies report that one of the marketing strategies that most impact gambling behavior is bonuses, which include personalized promotions (e.g., free bets) at a specific time (e.g., in the next hour) [23, 25–27]. Furthermore, online gambling advertisements (e.g., websites, pop-ups, social media) have a greater impact on gambling behavior compared to traditional media (e.g., TV) [28], given its interactivity (e.g., directly access to the webpage) and how it adapts to the characteristics of the person (e.g., to their gambling behavior, age, gender) [29, 30].

In the field of substance use, regulatory measures, such as price adjustments, marketing restrictions, and limited accessibility (e.g., prohibition for minors), have demonstrated a significant impact on substance consumption, including tobacco [31–33], alcohol [34, 35], as well as on sugary beverages [36]. In this line, several studies have called for the need to conduct legislative measures to regulate gambling, with special emphasis on advertising, promotion, and sponsorship [37–40].

To our knowledge, there are only two studies that have examined the effects of regulatory measures on gambling participation. Engebø et al. (2021) reported that the regulatory measures in Norway (i.e., fewer machines, stricter regulation for placement and the requirement of gambler identification) led to a decrease in overall gambling participation [41]. On the other hand, Planzer et al. (2014) investigated the relationship between gambling policies and gambling disorder in Europe, and found that there is no association between prohibitions against online gambling and minimum age for engaging in gambling and developing gambling disorders [42]. It is worth noting that the study was carried out in 2014, and since then, gambling legislation has been meaningfully modified. Other studies have analyzed the effectiveness of several harm reduction measures, including self-exclusion systems, on-screen messages, the removal of ATMs, and the implementation of maximum bet amounts, among others [43–45]. Although these studies do not examine the impact of a specific law, the measures mentioned have been shown to be effective in reducing harm to gamblers and could be included within legal regulations.

In this vein, Spain enacted Royal Decree 958/2020 in November 2020 [46], a law which regulates, on the one hand, the conditions under which gambling operators can conduct advertising, sponsorship, promotion or any other form of commercial communication of their activity; and on the other hand, the conditions to develop certain responsible gambling policies and the protection of gamblers. Specifically, advertising on radio, television, and video platforms (e.g., YouTube) is prohibited outside the hours between 1 am and 5 am, the presence of famous people in commercial communications is not allowed, and neither is the sponsorship of sports clubs (i.e., shirts, stadiums), promotions to attract new and active customers are prohibited, and gambling operators should detect gamblers at risk, among other measures.

The current study aimed to examine the effect of the Spanish Royal Decree 958/2020 on gambling behavior (i.e., new accounts, active accounts, deposits, and total money bet) and marketing expenditure (i.e., advertising, bonuses, affiliation, and sponsorship) using official data from the Directorate General for Regulation of Gambling, which is part of the Spanish Ministry of Consumer Affairs.

Data sources

The Directorate General for the Regulation of Gambling (Dirección General de Ordenación de Juego), within the Spanish Ministry of Consumer Affairs, provides quarterly data on the online gambling market throughout Spain. The dataset comprises the activities performed by licensed gambling operators in Spain. These online gambling data were collected from company reports and aggregated by the Directorate General for the Regulation of Gambling (https://www.ordenacionjuego.es/es/descarga-datos-mercado-juego-online). This study employs a time series covering data from January 2013 to December 2023.

Study variables

A total of eight dependent variables were considered in the study, in particular four related to online gambling behavior and the remaining four related to marketing strategies.

The gambling behavior-related variables included were the following: 1) active accounts, that is, number of accounts in which at least one bet has been placed in a month; 2) new accounts, that is, number of new user registrations in which at least one deposit has been made; 3) deposits, i.e., total amount of money (in euros) credited into gambling accounts; and 4) total amount of money bet (in euros), that is, the total expenditure bet by gamblers to participate in gambling. Total amount bet is not a reflection of the real expenditure, since part of the participation comes from prizes won and bonuses.

Marketing-related variables were: 1) advertising expenditures, that is, total amounts spent by gambling operators to spread their brand and/or services through the traditional media or the Internet; 2) bonus expenditures, which is the total amounts spent by gambling operators to promote participation in gambling, as well as customer loyalty through released bonuses, discounts and similar mechanisms; 3) sponsorship expenditures, that is, total amounts spent by gambling operators in the financing of goods, activities or events, with the purpose of promoting its name, brand, image, activities or products; and 4) affiliation expenditures, which is the total amounts spent by gambling operators on individuals promoting their services and products and diverting traffic from their digital media (e.g., streaming channel) to the gambling operators' websites.

Given that the regulations contained in the Royal Decree came into force progressively from its approval in November 2020 until August 2021, an event (independent variable) was considered for each quarter for the last quarter of 2020 and the first three quarters of 2021. In other words, the study’s independent variables consisted of four possible events related to the Royal Decree 958/2020 implementation, in particular, October – December 2020, January – March 2021, April – June 2021, and July – September 2021.

Statistical analysis

Descriptive analyses were calculated to provide the mean of each dependent variable in each year, spanning from 2013 through 2023.

A Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA) model was used to evaluate the impact of the gambling law on online gambling behavior and marketing expenditure [47]. SARIMA models are highly versatile and efficient for time series analysis [48, 49], making them particularly suitable for studies on addictive behaviors [50–55]. The stationarity of the time series was evaluated with the Dickey-Fuller Generalized Least Squares (DF-GLS) (see Supplementary Material) [56]. Once the SARIMA model parameters were estimated, and considering the difficulty in fixing a specific time point when the Royal Decree 958/2020 had an effect due to its progressive implementation, different combinations of independent variables (i.e., four quarters during which Royal Decree 958/2020 was applied) were tested exploratory [57], considering these independent variables as both pulse (temporary effect) and step (permanent effect) functions. The resulting models that exhibited the best fit to the empirical data, as determined by R² and RMSE, were selected. The model residuals were tested using the Box-Ljung Q statistics. Additionally, financial variables, including marketing expenditure, deposits, and total money bet, were adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data from the National Statistics Institute of Spain, with January 2013 as the reference value (see https://www.ine.es/). The effect of COVID-19 was controlled in the second quarter of 2020. All statistical analyses were performed with SPSS (version 28, SPSS Inc., Chicago IL, USA), except for the DF-GLS test, which was calculated using EViews 12. All statistical analyses were conducted with a significance level of p ≤ .05.

Descriptive statistics of online gambling behavior and marketing variables

Table 1 reflects changes in variables relative to gambling marketing expenditure and online gambling behavior adjusted for inflation. There has been a slight increase from 2013 to 2023 in new accounts (4.77%, from 1,291,324 to 1,352,910) and a substantial increase in active accounts (316.36%, from 3.3 million to 13.9 million). In the same vein, deposits grew significantly (577.30%, from €469 million to €3.179 billion), as did the total amount of bets (378%, from €5.543 billion to €26.495 billion). The descriptive statistics reveal marketing spending has increased over the years, with a 83.23% increase in advertising spending (from €67 million to €122 million), 449.30% in bonuses (from €30 million to €166 million), 259% in affiliate spending (from €12 million to €42 million) and 130.80% in sponsorship spending (from €1.5 million to €3.6 million).

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Impact of Royal Decree 958/2020 on online gambling behavior

Table 2 delineates the influence of the Royal Decree’s approval on the dependent variables (i.e., active and new accounts, deposits, total amount bet and marketing variables). Additionally, Figure 1 and Figure 2 illustrate the actual data of the time series and the SARIMA model predictions, which estimate trends in the absence of Royal Decree 958/2020.

The Royal Decree’s approval initially led to a temporary increase of more than 177,000 new accounts registered in the first quarter of 2021 (EST = 177,423.2; p = .027). However, the implementation of new restrictions in the second quarter significantly and permanently reduced the number of new accounts by 326,000 (EST = -326,638.8; p = .006). Conversely, the Royal Decree had no impact on the number of active accounts. Moreover, it had a substantial effect on betting behavior, significantly reducing the amount of money bet by 232 million euros starting from the second quarter of 2021 (EST = -232,127,962; p = .016). However, there was no impact on the trend of deposits made by gamblers.

Impact of Royal Decree 958/2020 on marketing expenditure

Regarding marketing expenditure, the Royal Decree contributed to a reduction of 20 million euros in advertising expenditure in the third quarter of 2021 (EST = -20,551,131.4; p < .001). Bonus expenditure decreased by approximately 2.6 million euros in the first quarter of 2021 (EST = -2,638,125; p = .044). Sponsorship expenditure by gambling operators initially increased by 2.2 million euros after the Royal Decree’s approval in the last quarter of 2020 (EST = 2,212,994.3; p < .001), but then significantly decreased by 5.3 million euros in the third quarter of 2021 (EST = -5,294,348.7; p < .001). Finally, the Royal Decree appears to have had no effect on affiliation program expenditure.

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This is the first study examining the impact of gambling marketing regulation, particularly the Spanish Royal Decree 958/2020, on online gambling behavior (i.e., new and active account numbers, total amount bet on online games, and deposits), as well as marketing expenditure (i.e., advertising, affiliation, bonuses, and sponsorship). Two findings were highlighted: 1) regulatory measures conducted in Spain led to a permanent decrease in gambling behavior, in particular new accounts and total money bet; and 2) the Spanish regulation had an impact on marketing strategies, specifically in reducing expenditures earmarked for advertising, bonuses, and sponsorship.

According to the data provided by the Directorate General for the Regulation of Gambling, findings indicate that the implementation of the Royal Decree has impacted online gambling behavior. Specifically, the number of new accounts showed a temporary increase of more than 177,000 in the first quarter of 2021 (January – March), two months after the approval of the Royal Decree. This temporary increase may be attributed to the increase in marketing expenditure following the approval of the Royal Decree, as sponsorship and promotions were to be regulated in the coming months. Studies have consistently shown that marketing is closely related to gambling behavior [15, 23, 24, 28, 58, 59], and particularly sponsorship and new accounts [60].

However, from the second quarter of 2021 (April – June), there was a permanent reduction in the number of new accounts on online betting operators and the total amount of money wagered. During this period, articles related to the limits on the number of deposits gamblers can make, self-exclusion systems, and the detection of risky behaviors came into effect. Additionally, advertising on television and radio was restricted to between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. Although these regulatory measures impacted on new accounts, they did not affect the number of active accounts, or the deposits made. This could suggest that the regulatory measures affect non-gamblers, reducing the likelihood of initiating gambling behavior, but do not influence active gamblers.

There are several reasons that may explain why the Royal Decree has not had an impact on some variables of online gambling behavior has not been found. First, the most plausible explanation is that the impact of the Royal Decree on the number of active accounts and deposits will be observed in the long term. Also, although the legislative measures cover a large part of the marketing strategies of gambling operators, the gambling industry continues to advertise in different ways [61]. Gambling operators can advertise on their own channels (e.g., websites, social media profiles), and exploit the Internet advertising legal loophole (e.g., Twitch), despite knowing the negative impact it has, especially on the young population [62]. Additionally, promotions can be addressed to those gamblers who give their consent, and lottery products are exempt from this regulation, so they can be advertised in any media (e.g., television). Finally, although in Spain and other European countries, sponsorship of football events is not allowed, the Betano® bookmaker, for example, is an official sponsor of international competitions (e.g., Euro2024, 2024 Copa América) [63].

On the other hand, while it does not affect the amount deposited, the law has had a notable impact on the total amount wagered. It is important to highlight that the total amount wagered is a more sensitive variable that more accurately reflects engagement in gambling. Additionally, the law limits the maximum amount of money a gambler can deposit, specifically allowing for three limits: a maximum of €600 in one day, €1,500 in one week, and €3,000 in one month. These limits are remarkably high and, according to the results of the current study, these measures have not had a significant effect on the amount of money deposited, and indeed, have increased it beyond expectations.

With respect to the expenditure allocated to marketing, following chronological order, the implementation of the Royal Decree (in November 2020) caused a temporary increase in the money allocated to sponsorship by gambling operators. The prohibition of sponsoring football teams, jerseys, and stadiums in the following months (specifically in August 2021) led to a significant increase in spending on this marketing strategy before the end of 2020.

Conversely, the measures approved in the first quarter of 2021 (January - March) permanently decreased the money allocated to bonuses. As aforementioned, several articles came into effect aimed at regulating promotions and bonuses related to gambling, as well as the detection of risky behaviors, economic limits for deposits, the self-exclusion mechanism, and the prohibition of advertising in any media between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. Subsequently, the provisions that came into effect in the third quarter (July - September) significantly reduced the money allocated to advertising and sponsorship. In addition to the articles that came into force in previous months, during this period (i.e., April - June) those relating to restrictions on promotions to attract new customers, the use of public figures in advertisements, and the limitation of commercial communications on social media, among others, entered into force. Additionally, provisions related to the sponsorship of gambling operators by public figures or of sports teams by the gambling operators were also implemented in July 2021. This means that no gambling operator can sponsor sports teams, nor can they appear on sports facilities or jerseys.

These results could be interpreted in light of previous experiences with other addictive behaviors. Tobacco control also led to a reduction in the total marketing expenditure by the tobacco industry in the United States, which increased exponentially until 2003 when it began to decline. The total marketing expenditure by the tobacco industry peaked historically in 2003, reaching over USD 21.088 billion, and then progressively decreased by 63.8% to USD 7.624 billion by 2019 [64, 65]. However, there was a change in marketing strategies. While advertising expenditure significantly decreased from 1975 to 2019 (by 88%, from USD 1.829 billion to USD 221 million), spending on promotions (i.e., discounts, free samples) increased by 45% from 1975 to 2019 (from USD 389 million to USD 564 million), and price discounting increased by 5,886% (from USD 144 million to USD 6.846 billion) [64]. As observed, the inflection point in the marketing strategy change occurred in 2003, coinciding with the implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control [66] and the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement [67]. In this vein, researchers point out the need to learn lessons from other addictive behaviors to promote gambling regulations, both to enforce legal regulations that have been shown to work, but also to monitor, review, and change legal regulations as industry strategies change [9, 12, 68].

Despite the restrictions on affiliate programs (e.g., between 1 am and 5 am, not targeting minors, and including a "responsible gambling" label), no changes have been observed in this variable, unlike the changes seen in other marketing strategies. This could be due to the difficulty in controlling the content of affiliate programs (e.g., not linking gambling to success, hours of broadcasting, etc.) by the state, given the large number of accounts, their heterogeneity (in terms of platforms and content), and the difficulties in accessing them.

Marketing-related results have significant implications, as previous evidence indicates that promotions (i.e., bonuses) [28] and sponsorships [27] are two of the marketing strategies that most impact gambling behavior, especially among young people and gamblers [28, 69]. The gambling industry customizes its promotions to the characteristics of the gamblers (e.g., gambling frequency, sports they usually bet on) in a way that makes placing a bet more attractive. Promotions have been linked to various gambling-related variables, both subjective (e.g., normalization, risk perception) and objective (e.g., frequency, money gambled), [15, 22–24], suggesting that a decrease in the money allocated to bonuses will have a direct impact on gambling behavior, possibly affecting variables not examined in the present study.

Considering the results, it is crucial to emphasize the importance of effective legal regulation, rather than opting to promote self-regulation. It should be underlined that attempts by the gambling industry to self-regulate (e.g., corporate social responsibility, responsible gambling, how to restrict deposits) [70] have repeatedly proven ineffective in preventing gambling-related problems [71, 72]. This ineffectiveness is partly due to the focus on "problem gamblers" rather than the "problematic products" promoted by the industry. These self-regulation strategies are often used by the industry to delay the implementation of more stringent and necessary governmental regulations [73].

The findings of the current study have significant implications within the Spanish context, particularly in light of recent developments such as the Spanish Supreme Court issued ruling 527/2024, which nullified several key articles of the Royal Decree 958/2020 [74]. Among others, restrictions on bonus promotions, use of celebrities and advertising in social media were turned down, under the justification that those articles lack scientific evidence supporting their restriction. The interference of the gambling industry has been widely reported in previous studies [44, 75–77], and this is another example of industry litigation aimed at preventing regulatory measures from being implemented.

These results should be interpreted under several limitations. Firstly, the analysis is confined to data from the past ten years, that is from 2013 to 2023. Also, only three years have elapsed since the approval of the regulatory measures (i.e., November 2020), with a mere year and a half since the full implementation of all articles (i.e., August 2021). Furthermore, it is worth mentioning that the law was implemented progressively, with several articles coming into force at different times over almost a year (from November 2020 until August 2021). As a result, the analysis of the impact of the law as a whole is complex. In this vein, it was difficult to determine a point in time at which the effects should take place, as knowledge of the law may have had an effect earlier, or the entry into force of the law may have a longer-term effect. On the other hand, the study focuses solely on online gambling behavior, thereby excluding in-person gambling activities. Also, the study does not consider other relevant variables in the context of gambling research, which precludes an examination of potential mediating factors of the regulatory measures' impact, such as age, gender, or gambler profile (e.g., frequency, type of gambling).

In conclusion, this study is the first to examine the impact of legislative measures on online gambling behavior and marketing expenditure, using official data provided by the Directorate General for Regulation of Gambling. The findings suggest that regulatory measures have a permanent impact on gambling behavior, significantly reducing the number of new accounts and the amount of money wagered. Furthermore, the gambling industry allocates less money to advertising, bonuses, and sponsorship—marketing strategies closely associated with gambling behavior. Notably, it is crucial to persist in the implementation of regulatory measures and the monitoring of their enforcement with the ultimate objective of reducing the normalization of gambling and, consequently, of gambling behavior.

Our findings advocated the implementation of regulatory measures that have been shown to be effective in other countries [44], with the ultimate goal of reducing the impact of gambling on public health. This study can serve as a model for other countries where gambling advertisements have not yet been regulated. Moreover, these findings confirm and extend that regulatory measures have an impact on online gambling behavior, at least in the short term. Further prospective research is needed to confirm whether this impact on online gambling behavior persists in the long term, even after the removal of the aforementioned articles.

DF-GLS Dickey-Fuller Generalized Least Squares

CPI Consumer Price Index

SARIMA Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable

Consent for publication

Not applicable

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and analyzed during the current study are available in the website of the Directorate General for the Regulation of Gambling (https://www.ordenacionjuego.es/es/descarga-datos-mercado-juego-online).

Competing interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests

Funding

This research was supported by a predoctoral grant from the Government of the Principality of Asturias [ref.: PA-21-PF-BP20-015], and by a postdoctoral grant from the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033) and from the European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR (ref.: JDC2022-048311-I). The funders had no role in the study design, collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.

Author contributions

GAD and AK designed the work. AGP analyzed and interpreted the data. GAD wrote the initial draft. AK and AGP revised the manuscript.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank The Directorate General for Regulation of Gambling for collecting and providing the data used in this study.

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Table 1 Number of new and active accounts, total money gambled, and marketing-related variables (i.e., advertising, bonuses, affiliation and sponsorship).
	New accounts	Active accounts	Deposits	Total money gambled	Advertising	Bonuses	Affiliation	Sponsorship
2013	1,291,324	3,346,477	469,444,777	5,543,093,752	66,999,762	30,219,742	11,715,257	1,553,702
2014	1,283,642	4,332,934	580,552,880	6,506,479,126	72,120,695	27,897,364	12,505,456	950,948
2015	1,406,226	4,918,109	771,410,666	8,540,630,873	82,565,797	37,280,304	13,889,864	324,218
2016	1,903,738	6,901,269	1,084,599,635	10,876,370,479	113,136,055	89,886,576	19,529,851	3,566,827
2017	1,969,377	7,793,169	1,369,930,653	13,035,542,842	101,337,701	84,915,476	22,022,744	9,233,126
2018	2,559,304	9,978,954	1,720,635,500	16,707,238,379	164,137,428	112,090,640	30,718,724	13,857,530
2019	2,826,167	10,839,268	1,893,154,597	17,981,032,130	175,156,813	123,442,738	37,686,441	19,809,382
2020	3,012,658	10,461,953	2,188,167,508	20,751,211,786	193,716,837	189,495,363	37,038,689	25,756,375
2021	2,608,633	11,982,027	2,583,319,712	25,325,049,764	191,732,964	181,987,018	38,205,424	19,118,618
2022	1,366,786	12,689,802	2,849,389,350	25,246,516,092	116,527,597	167,333,872	35,695,783	2,668,959
2023	1,352,910	13,933,511	3,179,542,376	26,495,417,531	122,766,119	165,998,397	42,043,600	3,586,581

Table 2 Results of SARIMA models with Royal Decree 958/2020 events.
Variables	IV	EST	95%CI [LL; UL]	SE	t	p	R²	Q (lag)	p	SARIMA
New accounts	RD Q4 2020^a	-		-	-	-	.864	7.381 (16)	.965	(1.0.0) (1.0.0)
	RD Q1 2021^b	177,423.2	21,993.3; 332,853.1	76,903.6	2.307	.027
	RD Q2 2021^c	-326,638.8	-99,948.6; -552,239.0	112,161.8	-2.912	.006
	RD Q3 2021^a	-		-	-	-
Active accounts	RD Q4 2020^a	-		-	-	-	.447	11.318 (17)	.840	(0.1.0) (0.1.1)
	RD Q1 2021^a	-		-	-	-
	RD Q2 2021^a	-		-	-	-
	RD Q3 2021^a	-		-	-	-
Deposits	RD Q4 2020^a	-		-	-	-	.722	8.059 (14)	.886	(0.1.3) (0.1.1)
	RD Q1 2021^a	-		-	-	-
	RD Q2 2021^a	-		-	-	-
	RD Q3 2021^a	-		-	-	-
Total money bet	RD Q4 2020^a	-		-	-	-	.464	14.402 (16)	.569	(0.1.1) (0.1.1)
	RD Q1 2021^a	-		-	-	-
	RD Q2 2021^c	-232,127,962	-47,057,203.6; -417,198,721.4	91,705,445.4	-2.531	.016
	RD Q3 2021^a	-		-	-	-
Advertising	RD Q4 2020^a	-		-	-	-	.782	20.943 (17)	.229	(0.0.1) (0.0.0)
	RD Q1 2021^a	-		-	-	-
	RD Q2 2021^a	-		-	-	-
	RD Q3 2021^c	-20,551,131.4	-11,676,994.6; -29,425,269.2	4,394,225.2	-4.677	< .001
Bonus	RD Q4 2020^a	-		-	-	-	.943	15.937 (17)	.528	(0.1.1) (0.0.0)
	RD Q1 2021^c	-2,638,125.0	-81,649.2; -5,194,600.8	1,266,773.6	-2.083	.044
	RD Q2 2021^a	-		-	-	-
	RD Q3 2021^a	-		-	-	-
Affiliation	RD Q4 2020^a	-		-	-	-	.518	14.619 (17)	.623	(0.1.0) (0.1.1)
	RD Q1 2021^a	-		-	-	-
	RD Q2 2021^a	-		-	-	-
	RD Q3 2021^a	-		-	-	-
Sponsorship	RD Q4 2020^b	2,212,994.3	1,049,606.4; 3,376,382.2	576,077.2	3.841	< .001	.792	14.841 (18)	.673	(0.1.0) (0.0.0)
	RD Q1 2021^a	-		-	-	-
	RD Q2 2021^a	-		-	-	-
	RD Q3 2021^b	-5,294,348.7	-4,130,960.8; -6,457,736.6	576,077.2	-9.190	< .001
Note. ªEvent not included in the model. ^bPulse effect (temporary). ^cStep effect (permanent). IV = Independent variable; EST = Estimate; LL = lower limit; UP = upper limit; SE = Standard error; Q = Ljung-Box test; RD Q4 2020 = regulation of Royal Decree 958/2020 that entered into force in November and December of 2020; RD Q1 2021 = regulations of Royal Decree 958/2020 that entered into force between January and March 2021; RD Q2 2021 = regulations of Royal Decree 958/2020 that entered into force between April and June 2021; RD Q3 2021 = regulations of Royal Decree 958/2020 that entered into force between July and September 2021.

No competing interests reported.

Supplementary1.docx

Impact of Spanish gambling regulations on online gambling behavior and marketing strategies

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Abstract

Figures

BACKGROUND

METHODS

Data sources

Study variables

Statistical analysis

RESULTS

DISCUSSION

CONCLUSIONS

Abbreviations

Declarations

References

Tables

Additional Declarations

Supplementary Files

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