Legislation

Norway – Lotteritilsynet to get more banning power in Norway

By Phil - 16 December 2019

Norway’s gambling regulator Lotteritilsynet will amend the payments ban will come into effect on January 1, 2020, giving it the power to block transactions based on company names and related to certain account numbers.

A ban on payments to unlicensed gambling operators was introduced in 2010, but Lotteritilsynet believes around NOK6bn ($659.9m) is still spent each year with 250,000 Norwegians playing with such companies.

Lotteritilsynet lawyer and advisor, Gram Skår, said: “The foundation of the Norwegian gambling model is to help protect vulnerable groups from becoming gambling addicts. Good public control of gambling offsets both crime and gambling addiction. We see the effect of work we are doing today, but the purpose of the changes is to make the payment service ban more effective. This means we can, to a greater extent, prevent gaming companies from accepting deposits from Norwegian players.”

Lotteritilsynet said it had received complaints from a number of players over unlicensed gaming companies.

Caption: Lotteritilsynet Director Atle Hamar