Branschföreningen för Onlinespel (BOS), the online gambling trade association of Sweden, is calling for the break-up of Sweden’s state-owned gambling monopoly Svenska Spel by the end of 2023.
It argues that the monopoly should not automatically be allowed to participate in sports betting and online gaming.
BOS Secretary General Gustaf Hoffstedt penned an op-ed in the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter that called for a regulatory infrastructure that makes a “fundamental distinction between being the legislator and rule setter.”
There has been a dichotomy between commercial casinos and government casinos since 2019 when Swedish law granted Svenska Spel the right to compete with private gaming.
The 70 licensed commercial operators argue that it is unfair for a government-owned entity to compete against them as they vie for market share.
Hoffstedt wrote that in “Svenska Spel, the state is active in both of these markets, but now the time has come to divest Svenska Spel Sport & Casino, – the unit of the company that is active in the commercial, competitive gambling.”
He added, “No one who has followed developments in the Swedish gambling market can claim that there is too little competition between the 70 companies that operate in competitive gambling. Competition is fierce and would remain so even in the absence of the state as a commercial casino operator and bookmaker in betting.”
Hoffstedt cited a government study that found, “no distinction” between a private business and Svenska Spel. “They follow exactly the same responsible gambling regulations, and they do it no better or worse than their competitors,” he wrote. “They pay exactly the same gambling tax as all other gambling companies.”
Recently a new government took power in Sweden, and the center-right components of the new ruling coalition are considered sympathetic to the argument that the state-owned enterprise should be broken up.
