Norway’s Lottery Authority (Lotteritilsynet) has recruited the nation’s banks to enforce the law against unlicensed gaming operators, Yogonet reported September 26.
It plans to supervise the compliance of nine banks with the “payment intermediary ban,” which prevents them from processing transactions from the black-market operators.
According to a statement by the regulator: “The Norwegian Lottery Authority has the right to make decisions and order the banks to reject transactions to and from specific account numbers and companies.”
An attorney and senior adviser to the Authority, Rannveig Gram Skår added, “For a long time, we have focused on dialogue with Norwegian banks and financial institutions. For the first time, we have now chosen to open a more thorough inspection of compliance.”
She called the payment intermediary ban an important tool to protect the Norwegian sole proprietorship model. “The purpose of the model is to prevent gambling problems and other negative consequences of gambling.”
Norway has two state-owned gaming monopolies, Lottery Norsk Tipping, which operates casino gaming and sports betting, and Norsk Rikstoto, which operates horse racing.
