Spain’s government and economic agencies have begun to track the movements in pricing of online gambling prices to determine how inflationary changes may impact consumer spend in a digital economy.
INE, Spain’s Statistics Institute, announced that online gambling will now be listed as a new category for monitoring, forming part of a new Consumer Price Index (IPC), which was first formed in 2025.
INE has adopted a new “baseline model” to calculate inflationary factors that impact Spanish consumer spend. The model recognises consumers’ increasing engagement in online spend and that prices are impacted by global uncertainties.
While gambling has been featured in Spain’s “price basket” since 2017, this is the first time that online gambling trends have been directly incorporated into the methodology.
New products and categories added to the IPC include streaming services, digital subscriptions and other online activities.
Additional subcategories introduced under the Base 2025 methodology include garden and camping furniture, caravans and motorhomes, trailers and vehicle rental services without a driver.
The changes reflect the INE’s ongoing review of spending patterns to ensure that inflation measurements accurately mirror how Spanish households allocate their expenditure.
New Methodology
To support the change, the INE has adopted new digital data collection techniques. Prices are now obtained from major betting operators through web scraping, a process that automatically extracts information from a range of different websites for analysis.
INE officials stated: “The integration of online gambling has been carried out by obtaining prices from the main betting operators using web-scraping techniques.
“The move aligns gambling with a growing number of consumer categories that are now monitored through digital channels rather than traditional field collection methods.”
Spain’s economic agencies have expressed their support for the change in the IPC model and its data feedback, noting that it will enable the government and economic agencies to better coordinate against declining consumer spending.
All options to lower inflation
The update comes at a time when inflation remains a key economic concern in Spain. Preliminary figures showed that Spain’s harmonised inflation rate rose to 3.6% in May 2026, above the eurozone average of 3.0% and Germany’s 2.7% – however, it remained broadly in line with Italy’s 3.3%.
Spain joins a relatively small group of jurisdictions that include gambling within official inflation calculations.
Across Europe, statistical agencies have begun updating methodologies to account for games of chance and other digital consumer activities. However, several major markets, including the UK and Ireland, continue to exclude gambling expenditure from their principal inflation indices.
Spain’s decision places it among a limited number of European nations seeking to capture the economic significance of online gambling within broader measures of consumer activity.
The move demonstrates how statistical agencies are increasingly adapting traditional economic indicators to reflect the realities of a digital-first consumer economy.
