Spain’s National Statistics Institute (INE) has included online gambling in the calculation of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), in what represents a further step in the measurement of prices for this activity.
Gambling was first included in the CPI calculation in 2017, but the body has now decided to expand coverage to include online betting, in light of the sector’s boom in the country. To do this, they have extracted fees and prices from the main betting houses using automated internet data collection systems.
The addition is part of the new 2025-base CPI methodology, which has involved a review of the consumption basket and of the information collection procedures used by the INE. According to the body’s methodological documentation, gambling represents one of the categories for which web scraping techniques are already used, alongside tourist apartments, passenger transport, and car rental without driver.
The inclusion of online gambling represents the first-time integration of the digital gambling channel as a specific component in the official measurement of inflation and the spending habits of Spanish households. And it comes at an important time when the sector is seeking to highlight its value in the growth of the Spanish economy, amid fiscal and regulatory pressures from the Government.