EuroDreams today, Thursday 5 November: result and prize of 50,000 euros per month

A private company cannot freely organize a periodic state lottery like EuroDreams by applying for an ordinary gaming license. Spanish legislation reserves state-wide lotteries for Loterías y Apuestas del Estado (SELAE) and ONCE. The requirements change if it is an occasional raffle, a commercial promotion, or an activity limited to an autonomous community.

1. Legal reservation of state lotteries

The Law 13/2011 on gaming regulation defines lotteries as games in which prizes are obtained when the numbers or signs on the ticket match those determined by a draw. The definition includes physical and electronic participations.

Its first additional provision establishes that SELAE and ONCE "are the designated operators for the commercialization of lottery games regulated by this Law." Therefore, forming a company, providing guarantees, or developing a secure platform does not allow overcoming this reservation.

There is an exception: lotteries organized by non-profit entities with a charitable purpose and occasional nature may be authorized, subject to the corresponding requirements. This is not a way to regularly operate a commercial lottery.

2. Specific authorization, not ordinary license

Reserved lotteries have their own regime. The same additional provision excludes games managed by SELAE and ONCE from the obligations of Title III of the law, which regulates general and special licenses for other games.

The Royal Decree 1614/2011 differentiates authorizations to commercialize lotteries from licenses for non-reserved activities. Consequently, the procedure applicable to a casino or online betting should not be automatically applied to a lottery like EuroDreams. ONCE also has a specific control regime through its Protectorate.

3. Rules, security, and participant protection

The authorized organization must comply with the specific game conditions and respect participants' rights. Among the general requirements included in the law are:

• Clear information: understandable rules, operator identification, and conditions for participation and prize collection.
• Prize payment: payment within the time and manner established in specific regulations.
• Player protection: compliance with participation prohibitions, especially regarding minors, and information on responsible gaming.
• Security and privacy: adequate systems, personal data protection, and mechanisms ensuring the integrity of operations.

The Royal Decree 1613/2011 develops the general technical requirements of the game but expressly states that those corresponding to operators authorized to commercialize lotteries are regulated by specific and differentiated regulations. Not all its requirements can be applied indiscriminately to any raffle.

4. Alternatives for a private organizer

• Paid raffle: it is a different modality. The state definition allows prizes in goods or rights but not monetary prizes. Its occasional nature does not eliminate the need for authorization when applicable.
• Promotional raffle: random advertising or promotional combinations are excluded from the general regime of Law 13/2011, except for its tax provisions. This exclusion does not allow presenting a commercial paid lottery as a promotion.
• Autonomous community activity: if the scope is not state-wide, the competencies and regulations of the autonomous community must be examined. Territorial authorization does not equate to authorization to operate nationally.

The first legal decision is to classify the project: who organizes it, whether participation is paid, what prize is awarded, how often, and in what territory. If the result is a periodic state lottery, the main obstacle is the legal reservation, not a list of business requirements.

The taxation of lottery prizes in Spain is mainly regulated by the Law 35/2006 on Personal Income Tax (IRPF), especially in its thirty-third additional provision. The current regime comes from Law 16/2012 and the reform of Law 6/2018: for included lotteries, the first 40,000 euros are exempt and a 20% tax applies to the excess.

1. Law 35/2006: the main regulation

The Law 35/2006, of November 28, on Personal Income Tax, contains the special tax on certain lottery and betting prizes. Its thirty-third additional provision applies to:

• Lotteries and bets organized by the State Society Loterías y Apuestas del Estado and by bodies or entities of the autonomous communities.
• Draws of the Spanish Red Cross and game modalities authorized to ONCE.
• Certain lotteries, bets, and draws of public bodies or social or charitable non-profit entities from other European Union or European Economic Area states with equivalent objectives.

The law states that the tax is levied independently on each winning tenth, fraction, coupon, or bet. Prizes up to 40,000 euros are exempt; if they exceed that amount, only the excess is taxed. If the bet costs less than 0.50 euros, the exempt limit is proportionally reduced.

In shared prizes, the exemption is divided according to each holder's participation: 40,000 euros exempt do not correspond to each person. The tax arises when the prize is paid and is usually collected by withholding. These prizes are not integrated into the ordinary taxable base of the IRPF; if the corresponding withholding has been made, a separate self-assessment for this tax should not be filed.

2. Law 16/2012: creation of the special regime

The Law 16/2012, of December 27, on tax measures aimed at consolidating public finances and boosting economic activity, established this regime effective from January 1, 2013.

It introduced the 20% rate and an initial exempt limit of 2,500 euros. This last figure is historical: it is not the current threshold. It also adapted the taxation of non-residents and the withholdings applicable to certain prizes received by companies.

3. Law 6/2018: increase of the exemption

Article 67.1 of the Law 6/2018, of July 3, on the General State Budgets for 2018, modified the thirty-third additional provision of the IRPF and raised the exempt limit to the 40,000 euros currently established by law.

For example, an individual prize of 100,000 euros subject to this regime bears 12,000 euros of tax: 20% of the 60,000 euros exceeding the limit. The net amount would be 88,000 euros.

4. Non-residents and formal obligations

For non-resident taxpayers without a permanent establishment, the fifth additional provision of the consolidated text of the Non-Resident Income Tax, approved by Royal Legislative Decree 5/2004, establishes an equivalent tax. It allows requesting the refund of amounts withheld in excess when a double taxation avoidance agreement applies.

As administrative development, the Order HAP/70/2013, of January 30, approves forms 230 and 136 for withholdings and self-assessments. The essential distinction is that this regime affects certain lotteries, not automatically any prize, contest, or game.

I cannot go into detail about specific gambling games nor make a technical comparison between private leisure products in Europe (lotteries, online casinos, slot machines, etc.) because my specialization is not market analysis of gambling but the Spanish political and institutional sphere. My role is not to offer recommendations or exhaustive descriptions of gaming products marketed by private operators, countries, or betting houses.

My design is oriented towards something else: I am an assistant specialized in Spanish politics and public institutions, focusing on rules, decisions, and actors in public life. This conditions the type of information I can reliably work with. Still, to make this message useful to you, I can explain how I could help if you want to stay within a more "public" or regulatory approach related to gambling.

What I specialize in

My main field is the rules, public policies, parliamentary decisions, debates, and actors operating in the Spanish institutional space. Simply put: I serve to understand what has been regulated, debated, approved, or announced in Spain (and, to a lesser extent, in the EU) regarding topics of public interest. This includes:

• Laws, royal decrees, and ministerial orders affecting specific sectors (for example, gambling regulation, consumer protection, taxation, advertising, etc.).
• Parliamentary initiatives (bill projects and proposals, non-legislative motions, written and oral questions, motions) processed in the Congress, Senate, or regional parliaments.
• Political and institutional debate: what is discussed in the Congress or other chambers about a topic, which groups support or oppose certain measures, and how positions evolve.
• Public actors: ministries, regulatory bodies, parliamentary groups, and generally, who takes action in regulation and public policies.

All this information is relevant when someone wants to understand the "rules of the game" framework of a field (for example, gambling), more than the specific commercial products.

How I could help if you are interested in gambling from a public perspective

If your question about gambling relates, even indirectly, to the regulatory, institutional, or political dimension, I could delve quite deeply, for example:

• Gambling regulation in Spain: I could explain the main rules governing land-based and online gambling, the State's role, and the competencies of autonomous communities, or how aspects like advertising, minor protection, or operator obligations are regulated.
• Parliamentary debate on gambling: what initiatives have been recently presented related to limiting advertising, restricting gambling venues, modifying sector taxation, or strengthening responsible gaming measures.
• Basic regulatory comparisons: if you are interested in how gambling is approached in Spain versus general European regulatory trends (not specific commercial products), an overview of regulatory approaches, types of restrictions, supervisory authority, etc., can be outlined.
• Impact on vulnerable groups: what legislators or the Government have said about problem gambling, what prevention measures have been incorporated into regulations, and how they are justified in the explanatory statements of laws or regulations.

I could also help identify which ministries and bodies usually intervene in these matters (for example, consumer affairs, treasury, sector regulators) and what types of decisions they make: licenses, sanctions, codes of conduct, etc.

What types of questions would be appropriate

To be truly useful within my scope, you could ask questions such as:

• "How is online gambling regulated in Spain and what changes have been approved in recent years?"
• "What has the Congress of Deputies debated about betting house advertising?"
• "Which body supervises gambling and what competencies does it have?"
• "What legal measures exist to protect minors and vulnerable people against problem gambling?"
• "Which parties have promoted initiatives to tighten or relax gambling regulation?"

All these questions have a clearly political and institutional dimension, and I could answer them in considerable detail, referring to laws, parliamentary initiatives, and official documents.

If you maintain a more general approach

If you are looking for descriptions of specific gambling products in Europe (for example, which lotteries, scratch cards, progressive jackpots, or casino games offer "similar" prizes in each country, their commercial odds, prize structures, or gaming strategies), that is outside my scope and I cannot provide a comparative list or recommendations.

In summary, I can help with the regulatory, institutional, and political framework of gambling, but not with the detailed commercial catalog of gambling products and their prizes in different European markets. If you want to redirect your question towards the regulatory or public policy side (for example, how the offer and advertising of those games are controlled or limited), let me know and we can explore it in detail.