The General Directorate for the Regulation of Gambling (DGOJ) in Spain is looking into links between problem gambling and instances of identity theft.
According to a recent release, the regulator has called on the support of both medical and scientific experts to explain a possible link between the two perilous paths that can come via unsafe gambling routes.
Spanish gambling regulators look to find troublesome links in gambling
The report was headlined by a statement that the DGOJ “shared the results of the PACS protocol with healthcare professionals and scientists and has proposed new prevention and awareness measures for young people and vulnerable groups.”
The meeting of the scientific and medical minds was attended by the DGOJ’s Mikel Arana, Director General of Gambling Regulation, Cecilia Pastor, Deputy Director General of Gambling Inspection, and Eugenio Álvarez, Deputy Director General of Gambling Regulation.
Beatriz Mesías Pérez, Deputy Director General of the General Subdirectorate of Addictions at Madrid Salud, and Francisco Ferre Navarrete, director of the AdCom clinic, a public center for the prevention, treatment, and research of behavioral addictions at the Institute of Psychiatry and Mental Health at the Gregorio Marañón Hospital.
The scientific community was represented by the Responsible Gaming Advisory Council’s (CAJR) Ángela Ibáñez Cuadrado, Néstor Szerman, and Juan Francisco Navas Pérez.
The hope was to create a possible open forum of specialists to “share the main conclusions obtained in recent years on identity theft in the field of online gambling and analyze new preventive action strategies,” said the release.
The session spotlighted the options available to Spanish taxpayers who had their data stolen and how they could ring the alarm on this impersonation, called “Action Protocol for Impersonated Taxpayers (PACS-2024).”
Young adults were also a focus of a session that shone a light on the normalisation of gambling and how betting “tipsters” and their advice could be seen as counterproductive to both safe gambling and setting an unrealistic standard for returns.
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