Spain’s gambling regulator, the Directorate General for the Regulation of Gambling (DGOJ), has officially initiated a specialized €950,620 grant call to fund advanced scientific research into gambling-related disorders and preventative toolsets.
The competitive application pipeline is open to public universities, private R&D centers, and eligible non-profit organizations until June 22, 2026.
Six Eligible Research Focus Lines
To ensure evidence-based policy development, all funded research projects must be initiated retroactively to January 1, 2026, and achieve full completion by June 30, 2027. The DGOJ has hard-coded six distinct research fields eligible to receive corporate grants:
- Early Detection: Developing automated algorithms to flag participants showing initial risky behavior.
- Socio-Emotional Impact: Tracking individual, family, or personal health harms linked to gambling disorders.
- Preventative Tools: Formulating backend processes that mitigate the negative consequences of play.
- Video Game Convergence: Analyzing the psychological and financial overlap between gaming loot boxes and gambling.
- Product Design Risks: Evaluating the structural risk characteristics of lotteries, poker variations, and sports betting.
- Gender Impact: Tracking the localized gender-specific demographics of severe gambling behavior.
Strict Autonomy and Independence Safeguards
To safeguard academic integrity, the DGOJ has integrated a rigid independence clause into the application parameters. Participating non-profit organizations must work through a formal legal arrangement with a certified research center and are strictly barred from having any active gambling operators or casino executives on their governing boards.
Applications for the grant call must be processed electronically through the DGOJ’s official digital platform, reflecting Spain’s wider national push to implement data-driven prevention strategies that evaluate product architecture alongside individual player choices.
