In Sweden, gambling companies that do not comply with the regulatory requirements of online gambling concessions are sometimes subject to very delicate fines. According to the Swedish regulator Spelinspektionen, one of the reasons for this number of fines is that licensees are not used to strictly regulated markets.
What are the reasons for violations of Swedish gambling law?
While language barriers are also considered a problem, this indicates that in other jurisdictions it is possible to enter into agreements with operators if they violate licensing requirements. Under Swedish law, such a practice would be "completely alien."
The argument about the ambiguity of the regulations was rejected, it was only about the operators' excuses. The report does so for this reason:
- Spelinspekonen notes that in many cases, gambling companies cite the ambiguity of the new regulations as reasons for noncompliance.
- So far, [these violations] have not been the result of vague rules on their inspections. On the contrary, the violations have been serious and overt.
Regulatory statistics through August 2019
In the first year of online casino licenses in Sweden, 41 investigations were initiated during spel inspections by August 30, 2019. Of these, 28 tests have been completed and 13 are still under investigation.
In the area of completed investigations, 19 fines and warnings were imposed, and in 18 cases the operators concerned appealed the decisions.
The 12 investigations would have involved sports betting providers who offered odds on underage games, which is not allowed by license provisions. In the extreme case, various Cherry Group portals were penalized for this. ComeOn was sentenced to a fine of €886,000, Snabbare was fined €560,000, and Hyper was fined approximately €420,000. The fine was approximately 0.1% of the monthly turnover of the respective bookmakers.
6 gambling operators violated bonus offers. In Sweden, players are only allowed to receive a bonus throughout their playing career. They gave players more bonuses.
In 3 cases the gambling operators did not have a unified system to block Spelpaus.se for integration. In fact, the blocked players were able to register with the gambling providers. Penalties were also imposed for this.
Two studies examined "shadow lotteries." These are lottery service providers, which are also prohibited by the Swedish gambling law. The other case involved money laundering and non-compliance with money laundering regulations. Global Gaming was subsequently revoked by the Swedish regulator. At that time, representatives of the regulator warned all gambling providers:
- If a gambling company commits more serious violations, it may not be considered eligible to hold a license, and then the concession will be revoked.
The upshot: Providers must first adapt to spell check requirements
As of January 2019, online gambling is legal in Sweden. There is a Swedish gambling license, for which more than 70 online gambling providers have now applied. According to Spelinspektionen and the Swedish Tax Authority, licensed operators in Sweden generated net revenues of 560 million euros in the second quarter. So the Swedish market is not as small as one thinks.
Despite this, many Swedish players feel that the choice of games in domestic gambling establishments is very small and has many limitations. As a consequence, Swedish players most often choose casino utan svensk licens med trustly. These casinos are internationally licensed in Britain, Malta or another European country
Most gambling providers operating in Sweden also hold gambling licenses from the Malta Gambling Authority and the UK Gambling Commission. In particular, the latter regularly deals with gambling providers who do not comply with their rules. It seems a bit odd when inspections claim that vendors are "not used to their regulatory approach," but perhaps Sweden's interpretation of the law is a bit more complicated than in other countries. In any case, the Swedish example shows that Internet gambling can be reliably regulated if there are strict and strong authorities in place.
Against the backdrop of Germany's "blue letter" on the 3rd amendment to the state gambling treaty, this is once again important. The EU Commission also complained that Germany still does not intend to investigate online gambling to justify a complete ban on online casinos. Sweden shows that regulation is possible without player protection, at least if you constantly pursue misconduct by casino operators.