Spain's CNMC Fines Gol TV's Owner Over a Scores App Ad With a Betting Button Aired Before 1am

Spain's audiovisual regulator has ruled that an advert for a sports results app counted as gambling advertising because a "1 X 2 Apuestas" button appeared on screen, and that it was shown outside the 01:00 to 05:00 window the law allows. The broadcasts were in July 2024; the decision came 26 months later.

• Spain's National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) has sanctioned Veo Televisión, which runs the Gol TV channel, for airing gambling-related advertising outside the 01:00 to 05:00 slot set by the General Audiovisual Communication Law, in case SNC/DTSA/036/25
• The adverts were three insertions for BW Scores, a sports results app, broadcast on 1 and 3 July 2024 shortly before 1am; the CNMC said a "1 X 2 Apuestas" button in the creative tied the advert to betting, even though the app itself takes no bets
• The CNMC set a €48,237 fine for the betting adverts and €87,318 for sponsorship messages for Finetwork and Banco Santander that pushed specific offers, a total of €135,555 cut by 20% to €108,444 for early payment
• Veo TV paid without admitting the facts; a favourable pre-clearance from the self-regulator Autocontrol reduced the betting fine but did not excuse the breach, the CNMC said
• The decision lands as Spain's regulator works to put its advertising curbs on a statutory footing after the Supreme Court annulled parts of the 2020 advertising decree in 2024

Spain's Audiovisual Regulator Treats a Scores App Ad as Gambling Advertising

The National Markets and Competition Commission (Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia, CNMC), which supervises national broadcasters under the General Audiovisual Communication Law 13/2022 (LGCA), announced on 2 October that it had sanctioned Veo Televisión S.A.U., the company responsible for the Gol TV channel. The resolution, adopted by the CNMC's Regulatory Supervision Chamber on 17 September, finds two continuing serious infringements: broadcasting commercial communications related to gambling and betting outside the permitted hours, and broadcasting sponsorships that directly encouraged viewers to buy.

Article 123.7 of the LGCA allows audiovisual commercial communication "related to gambling and betting" only between 1:00 and 5:00, and only for entities licensed to offer gambling in Spain. According to the resolution, Gol TV aired a BW Scores advert at 00:34:57 and 00:40:30 on 1 July 2024 and at 00:54:50 on 3 July 2024, around live martial arts programming. The voiceover promoted real-time results, statistics, news and notifications, but the on-screen interface showed a button labelled "1 X 2 Apuestas" (1 X 2 Bets). Audience data cited by the CNMC put the two late-night programmes at 37,140 and 45,060 viewers.

Veo TV argued that BW Scores is an information service that takes no bets, manages no funds and describes itself as unrelated to gambling, that the button appeared for about one second, and that Autocontrol, the advertising self-regulator, had cleared the creative on 29 April 2024. The CNMC rejected the argument. It held that it is irrelevant whether the advert comes from a gambling operator, or whether the advertised service itself allows betting; what matters is whether the communication is objectively related to betting. It said Autocontrol's report did not mention the buttons and was conditional on showing that BW Scores advertising would not be perceived as indirect advertising for Betway. Veo TV disputed that investigators had shown the button led to Betway content in July 2024; the CNMC said its later check of the button corroborated the link to betting but that the charge rested on what viewers saw.

A €135,555 Fine, Reduced to €108,444

The CNMC fined Veo TV €48,237 for the betting adverts, citing the small number and short duration of the insertions, the limited audience and Veo TV's good faith in seeking Autocontrol's view. A separate €87,318 fine covered two Finetwork and six Banco Santander sponsorship insertions on 3 July 2024 that mentioned specific offers and promotional prices. Veo TV declared Gol TV's 2024 advertising revenue in Spain at €16,514,418, which the CNMC used as the reference for the fines. It paid on 1 September, before the resolution, taking a 20% reduction to €108,444, without admitting the facts. The reduction depends on Veo TV waiving any administrative appeal; it can still go to the National High Court (Audiencia Nacional) within two months.

The CNMC Has Widened the Net Beyond Operators

The most consequential line in the resolution is that the time window applies to any advert "related to" gambling, whoever the advertiser and whatever the product. Royal Decree 958/2020 limits gambling operators' commercial communications on audiovisual services to 01:00 to 05:00, and the 2022 law extends that to communications related to gambling. Veo TV invoked Article 23.1(b) of the decree, which allowed operator advertising on websites and apps mainly devoted to gambling information and which the Supreme Court annulled in judgment 527/2024 of 2 April 2024. The CNMC replied that the annulment changed nothing about the statutory hours. Spain's licensed operators already work within the window; the decision tells broadcasters that sports data apps, tipster brands and other indirect vehicles carrying betting cues are likely to be treated the same way, and that an Autocontrol clearance is mitigation, not a defence.

Twenty-Six Months and About €38,600 Is a Slow, Light Deterrent

The broadcasts aired during Euro 2024. Proceedings opened in September 2025, the proposed decision reached Veo TV in July 2026, and the resolution followed in September, close enough to the LGCA's two-year limitation period that Veo TV argued the Santander insertions were time-barred, an argument the CNMC rejected. The betting element of the fine, after the 20% reduction, comes to about €38,600 on our calculation, against advertising revenue of €16.5 million. The CNMC weighed real mitigating factors, and the case concerns three short spots. But enforcement that arrives two years later, at a cost a broadcaster can pay early and move on from, is unlikely by itself to change how indirect betting advertising is placed. Its value is in the reasoning, which other broadcasters' compliance teams will read.

Spain Is Rebuilding Its Advertising Rules on Statute

The case shows why the time window has outlasted the 2024 litigation. The Supreme Court, ruling on an appeal by the digital gambling association Jdigital, annulled Articles 13.1 and 13.3, 15, 23.1, 25.3 and 26.2 and 26.3 of the 2020 decree for lack of legal basis, covering bonuses, the use of well-known personalities and parts of online advertising. The broadcast hours survived because Parliament put them in the LGCA. The Directorate General for the Regulation of Gambling (DGOJ), which supervises operators, is following the same route, having consulted on amendments to the 2011 Gambling Act to ban celebrities and influencers. The demand side is not shrinking: Spain's online gambling revenue rose 31% to €539 million in the second quarter, and the CNMC's own e-commerce data show gambling and betting accounted for 9.9% of e-commerce transactions in the first quarter, more than any other activity.

The CNMC has made clear that a betting button is enough to make an advert a betting advert. Whether that message reaches broadcasters before the next tournament depends on enforcement arriving faster than this one did.