Legislation
Sweden – BOS cautious over ambiguous terms in ad restrictions
By Phil - 20 May 2022
Branschföreningen för Onlinespel (BOS), the Swedish online gaming association has agreed with the Swedish government’s move not to limit the hours that gambling advertisements can be aired.
The Swedish government has said it will bring in ‘adjusted moderation’, rather than the ‘special moderation’ used for alcohol marketing, which would restrict the advertising of ‘high-risk’ to between 9pm and 6am.
It said: “The marketing of games must be adapted to take special account of the fact that different forms of gambling entail different risks of addiction.” However, it will not include the previous proposal to .
BOS Secretary General Gustaf Hoffstedt said: “The most striking thing is actually what is not included in the proposal, such as a ban on advertising for gambling on TV, radio and streaming media between 6am and 9pm. We are pleased that the government has listened to stakeholders in the gambling industry as well as several publishers who have pointed out the disadvantages of such a proposal.”
Mr. Hoffstedt did say though that the terminology of ‘adjusted moderation’ was ambiguous.
He added: “The remaining concern is the proposal for ‘adjusted moderation’. It seems to be a paraphrase of risk classification and the ambiguity of what it actually means is open to legal uncertainty. Here, the legislature should consider whether it really wants to introduce further uncertainty regarding the interpretation of regulatory measures, uncertainty that risks leading to protracted court proceedings.”
