Sweden, through its Swedish Gaming Board, has moved to protect its Svenska Spel gambling monopoly by asking Apple to remove all online gambling apps from the Swedish App Store.
Sweden owns Svenska Spel, which has a monopoly on all mobile and land-based gambling in the country.
The European Commission has warned the country that the monopoly may be illegal.
After the request, Apple removed all Apps developed for Swedish players from iTunes. Operators such as PokerStars, partypoker.com, Full Tilt Poker, 888poker, Betfair Poker, Unibet Poker, William Hill Poker, and a few others then also withdrew their apps from the Swedish App Store.
In 2013, the European Commission urged the Swedish government to take steps to make its laws compliant with EU gambling policies. Since the country failed to respond, the issue has been referred to the European Court of Justice.
EU laws do not prevent its member states from excluding foreign companies, but the country has to “demonstrate that the restrictive measures in question are suitable and necessary.”
