The government of Sweden has abandoned plans to try to block all unlicensed forms of gaming, whether or not the platforms try to attract Swedish players.
The government signaled the abandonment of the plan when it submitted a new law on match-fixing and unlicensed gaming to Sweden’s Legal Counsel Lagrådet. The law derived from recommendations made in a 2021 paper by Swedish Chamber of Commerce Director General Gunnar Larsson and the Ministry of Finance on match-fixing and unlicensed gambling.
The new law is scheduled to take effect next year.
That report had recommended expanding the powers of the regulator Spelinspektionen to take action against any operators that Swedish residents play on whether they try to attract them or not, i.e. to enforce Swedish law against operators that Swedish players choose to play on.
This approach would simplify things for the regulator, in the sense that it would not need to interpret whether a platform was targeting a Swedish national or not. However, the Swedish treasury said it was unreasonable to expect foreign businesses to take action to avoid Swedish customers.
At the same time, an Administrative Court said it was unclear whether the government had the authority to make that change—and that it would be difficult to investigate and prosecute.
In withdrawing its plan, the government said, “There was a risk that the focus would be on whether players are resident or permanently resident in Sweden, instead of on whether the games are adapted for the Swedish market.”
The government did say it would make the process of payment blocking simpler.
Regarding match-fixing, the government proposes to allow licensees and sports bodies to collect personal data to determine if insider betting is happening. It had previously been noted that no entity has the authority to collect and analyze information on match-fixing.
