BOS urges the Swedish Ministry of Finance to take initiative to amend the Gambling Act
BOS, the Swedish Trade Association for Online Gambling, has written to the Swedish Ministry of Finance with a request to amend the Gambling Act.
It is currently perfectly legal for unlicensed gambling companies and their subcontractors to accept Swedish gambling consumers as long as the companies avoid using the Swedish language and Swedish currency. This loophole has led to a massive influx of unlicensed gambling offers into the Swedish gambling market.
The reason this has happened is because the Government changed the application of the Gambling Act compared to how the proposal was originally presented by the Gambling License Investigation, the investigation that then formed the basis for the new Gambling Act and the Swedish reregulation in 2019. The Gambling License Investigation wanted to criminalize companies in general that lack a Swedish gambling license that still accept Swedish gambling consumers.
BOS is writing to the Ministry of Finance today with a request that the Government take the initiative to amend the Gambling Act in favor of the Gambling License Investigation’s original proposal.
“Unlicensed gambling should be eliminated in Sweden. It is completely inadequate that around a quarter of all gambling is unlicensed, not least given the total absence of consumer protection on the black gambling market. If we are to succeed in eliminating this part of the gambling market, the Gambling Act must be amended and all unlicensed gambling must be criminalized,” said Gustaf Hoffstedt, Secretary General of BOS.
“It is legal to assist unlicensed gambling as long as it takes place on the internet, is not presented in Swedish and does not offer transactions in SEK. Such assistance can be provided by providing advertising space, mediating payment or delivering other services such as, for example, gambling products. Payment intermediaries, advertising platforms and gambling providers do not therefore violate the Gambling Act.”
“The consequence of the scope of application that the government chose to propose to the Riksdag, and which the Riksdag decided on, is that according to Swedish gambling regulations, it is permitted for gambling companies all over the world and their service providers to enable games from Swedish customers as long as it is done in a language other than Swedish and in a currency other than SEK. Most Swedes understand English and understand the value of commonly used foreign currencies, such as the euro.”
“There is therefore no real possibility for the Government to initiate any effective measure with the scope of application of the Gaming Act chosen by the Government to make it more difficult for Swedish gambling customers to freely choose to play at gambling companies that are not licensed in Sweden. This means that the focus is instead on licensed gambling companies meeting demand.”
“BOS has raised this problem with both the previous and current governments, but so far, no action has been taken. We would like the Government to take the initiative to change the scope of application of the Gambling Act so that it also becomes illegal to passively receive Swedish gambling consumers. That is, to change the scope of application to that originally proposed by the Gambling License Investigation. Such a change in law would make it possible to counteract the existence of unlicensed gambling companies as well as payment intermediaries and other subcontractors who currently avoid being hit by the law by using the euro as currency and English as language. We believe that the recent acquittal by the Court of Appeal against a payment intermediary who mediated payments from Swedish consumers to gambling companies unlicensed in Sweden underlines the importance and urgency of the issue.”
