The past year – changes within the gambling sector

During the past year, numerous regulatory changes have been introduced to the Swedish gambling sector. For example the Swedish parliament has, among other things, partially voted through proposal for strengthen gambling regulation. The Swedish government has also presented a new bill concerning measures to ensure a healthy and safe gambling market. Below follows a summary of the changes and proposal within the gambling sector that have taken place during the past twelve months. 

In November, the Swedish parliament decided on regulatory measures for a safer gambling sector. In the Governments’ proposal 2021/22:242 A strengthened gambling regulation (Sw, PDF), a number of measures were proposed to exclude unlicensed gambling from the Swedish gambling market, including requirements for licenses for gaming software, a ban on promoting illegal games and an extended ban on advertising for unlicensed games.

The government also proposed that the law on organization of certain slot games, which regulates slot games on passenger ships between Sweden and Finland, should be suspended and that a new agreement between Sweden and Finland regarding these types of games should be agreed upon. The proposal was partially accepted by the Swedish Parliament on the 23^rd of November. The part of the proposal that did not pass the vote concerned changes regarding the rules on moderate marketing of games and the suspension of the agreement between Sweden and Finland regarding slot machines on passenger ferries in regular services between the countries.  

The amendments to the law concerning licenses for gaming software enters into force on the 1^st of July 2023. Other amendments to the law entered into force on the 1^st of January 2023. 

On the 20^th of December the Swedish government published proposal 2022/23:33 Measures to ensure a healthy and safe gambling market (Sw, PDF). The government proposes several changes to the Gambling act (2018:1138). For example, the government proposes that they should have the power to announce regulations for providers of payment services regarding the disclosure of information that is used when mediating stakes or winnings to or from an unlicensed gambling operator, and that the current regulations in the Gambling Act on payment blocking be repealed. However, the new promotion ban mans that the payment service providers will continue to be obliged in certain cases to block payments to unlicensed gambling operators who target Swedish consumers.

In the proposal, the government states that there, at the moment, are no sufficient reasons to extend the scope of the Gambling Act to cover all games that a person who is physically in Sweden has access to. Instead, the current scope of the Gambling Act must be developed through the courts’ precedents. The government also proposes that the Swedish Gambling Authority, which oversees the supervision of the license requirements and the promotion ban on the gambling market, should be given the authority to carry out test purchases of gambling services under a hidden identity. Finally, the government proposes that new measures to counter the manipulation of results in sports should be introduced.

All changes are proposed to enter into force on the 1^st of July 2023.

We closely monitor the developments within the Swedish gambling sector. You are welcome to contact us if you have any questions about the regulations.   

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