Footfall Without a Turnstile: Reading Spanish Venues Through Mobility Data

Regulators publish machine counts and GGR; operators report revenue by country. Nobody publishes how much human traffic a given gambling venue actually sits in. Using MITMA mobility data — anonymised origin-destination flows from the Spanish transport ministry — we estimated the catchment inflow around each venue and rolled it up by province.

The ranking is not where headcount alone would put it: tourist-and-transit-dense provinces top the list, while several large-population interior provinces sit far lower. For site selection that matters — a venue in a high-inflow catchment is exposed to far more passing demand than its neighbourhood population implies.

Coverage note: mobility inflow is present for 0% of gambling venues; provinces below 30 venues are excluded. Inflow is a catchment proxy, not turnstile footfall. Navarra appears in the ranking but its venue count reflects betting terminals rather than shops, so its figures are not comparable with other provinces.