Swedish Self-Exclusion Register Hits 20,000

Among many new gambling laws, Sweden has introduced a self-exclusion option where any citizen wishing not to participate in online gambling can get completely excluded. Up until now, in a bit over a month’s time…

…20,000 people have registered for self-exclusion!

Swedish Gambling Market

The Swedish gambling regulatory body, known also as Spelinspektionen, launched on January 1st of this year, a newly-regulated iGaming market in the state…

…along with the self-exclusion programme.

All users who register for this will completely block themselves from anything related to gambling. They won’t have access to online gambling services and won’t be seeing gambling advertisements.

This programme can also be applied to in-person betting in approved stores, bingo facilities or gambling machines…

…and also at all land-based casinos that are operated by Casino Cosmopol.

The self-exclusion is only applicable to the operators who already have the official state license to offer their services in Sweden.

Penalty for Operators

Just recently, Spelinspektionen had to issue an official and final warning to all iGaming operators, because they didn’t respect the country’s laws regarding the self-exclusion rule.

According to them, some people who excluded themselves have been complaining that they are still receiving betting marketing materials. Each operator who doesn’t respect the rules will suffer financial consequences…

…and can potentially lose their license.

Two companies that were not obeying these rules were Genesis Global and AG Communications, and both companies have been warned. They have immediately taken all necessary actions to continue their work according to Swedish law.

Spelinspektionen also said that they won’t be giving temporary licenses, so all operators who get rejected will have to accept this decision as final.

More New Operators

Up until now, Sweden has issued almost 70 new licenses for iGaming operators, and many more are yet to come. Just recently, the Swedish Gambling Authority issued three new licenses to Bell Casino, FT Diva Casino, and Piergaming.

As soon as Sweden launched the newly-regulated online gambling market, some big names immediately jumped on the bandwagon. One of them was Playtech, the world’s largest gaming supplier from the Isle of Man, along with Microgaming and Pragmatic Play.

“Sweden is a significant market for Microgaming and we are thrilled to offer our operators in the region a fully integrated solution to ensure compliance in line with regulations set by the Swedish Gaming Authority.

This move continues our strategic expansion in key regulated markets, working closely with regulators and supporting operators as they grow their offering with our diverse portfolio of content built with player protection in mind,” said Andrew Lucas, Chief Operating Officer at Microgaming.

Banning the Live Ads

Swedish Minister of Civil Affairs, Ardalan Shekarabi, announced that Sweden might become another country…

…that will ban gambling ads during live sports broadcasts.

The Minister highlighted that the country wants to follow in the footsteps of other nations that did the same and “let viewers watch the match in peace.” It is believed that limiting the number of ads during live broadcast can minimize gambling harms.

Minister Shekarabi said that Swedes were very “tired of the extremely aggressive marketing and the unrestrained advertising.” According to him, newly licensed operators “have a huge responsibility and must ensure that they live up to the requirements and intentions” of the new gambling laws.

Source:

“Swedish self-exclusion register hits 20,000”, igamingbusiness.com, February 7, 2019.