- Popular poker community site Poker10 had closed its doors, and Poker-Red disabled all advertising.
- “With the ban on direct or indirect advertising of the game lifted, Poker10 is back with more desire than ever.”
- The relaxation of these laws is part of a multi-stage process of Spain picking its path back to normality.
- The official state of emergency lasts until June 21.
- “Without a doubt, this is the best news of the last three months for all members of the sector.”
Spanish news and community sites dedicated to online poker, including Poker10 and Poker-Red, have returned to full operation after the country lifted emergency measures aimed to curb gambling activity during the coronavirus pandemic.
For the last two months, there has been an affective blackout on any online gambling promotion. This resulted in the popular poker community site Poker10 and the Spanish language edition of PokerListings closing its doors.
Other sites, like Poker-Red and the Spanish language version of PokerNews, removed all advertising offers and put a hold on all news that could be seen as promoting online poker, but kept their sites online.
While real money online poker rooms could continue operations, they had to pause all promotional offers and suspend all work with affiliates and other advertising.
These rash decisions to halt all operations came due to the passage of emergency bill 11/2020, which enacted various social and economic measures in response to the spread of COVID-19. This included new consumer protections, among them measures to curb “the intensification of the consumption of online gambling … which can lead to compulsive or even pathological consumption behaviors.”
This law was repealed on June with new Royal Decree-Law 21/2020.
