SWEDEN Trends and Developments Contributed by: Stefan Widmark, Hans Eriksson and Petter Larsson, Westerberg & Partners
Introduction The question of how best to direct customers towards licensed operators remains a persistent and central topic within the Swedish gambling industry. Opin- ions differ regarding the current level of channelisa- tion, although it is generally accepted that the target rate of 90%, set prior to re-regulation, has not been achieved. In an investigation conducted by the Swed- ish Gambling Authority (SGA) for 2023, results suggest that Swedish licensees covered approximately 86% of the competitively exposed part of the Swedish gam- bling market, even though the number for commercial online gambling is expected to be lower. The industry has questioned such findings, suggesting that this number is indeed significantly lower. In summary, both the licensed operators and the legis- lature agree that more must be done but opinions dif- fer on how to address the problem. In general, licence holders advocate an ease of the regulatory burden in terms of, for example, allowing more bonuses to become more competitive in relation to unlicensed operators, whereas the legislature currently seems more focused on facilitating the SGA’s enforcement. The upcoming year will be highly interesting for the Swedish gambling market considering the imminent appointment of a new general secretary for the SGA, and the upcoming Swedish election next year. Proposal of Changes to the Swedish Gambling Act Potential change of the scope of the Swedish Gambling Act In September 2025, a government-appointed com- mission presented a proposal to broaden the scope of the Swedish Gambling Act. The report suggests that a UK-inspired accessibility-based licence obligation be implemented from 1 January 2027. Considering the failure to meet the intended channelisation rates, the proposal was expected and has been widely applaud- ed by the industry, which hopes that it will form an important piece of the puzzle to effectively shut down unlicensed gambling in Sweden. Presently, the Swedish Gabling Act merely covers online gambling services that are provided in Swe- den, in the sense that they are directed towards the Swedish market. This essentially requires an intent to
target the Swedish market by way of, for example, the Swedish language, the use of Swedish currency for deposits and/or withdrawals, or Swedish customer support. Considering the vague concept of the direc- tion criterion, it has been subject to extensive litigation without desirable clarification. In practice, the direction criterion forms a tripartite competitively exposed Swedish gambling market, which includes the following three segments: • licensed operators; • unlicensed operators not directing services to the Swedish market (legal); and • unlicensed operators directing services towards the Swedish market (illegal). According to the SGA, roughly two-thirds of the gam- bling on unlicensed platforms in Sweden are currently legal – ie, attributable to platforms not targeting the Swedish market. The proposed abandonment of the direction criterion would reshape the above section- ing and instead create a bipartite market by merging the two latter categories into one illegal category. If adopted, an accessibility-based scope of the Gam- bling Act would in practice force unlicensed foreign operators to implement geo-blocking of their services in relation to Sweden to avoid providing illegal gam- bling services under Swedish law. It is worth noting that such a measure was initially proposed by the commission that investigated the re-regulation of the Swedish gambling market in 2017, although it was ultimately excluded from the final proposal. At this stage, however, it would be surprising if the bill were not adopted. Extended scope of liability for PSPs The government report also includes a proposal to extend the liability for payment service provider (PSPs) in relation to gambling-related payment ser- vices provided to unlicensed operators. PSP liability is presently limited to the provision of services spe- cifically developed for gambling operations, which has led to significant difficulties for enforcement. The narrow scope has led to unsuccessful enforcement against a number of PSPs as the SGA was unable to prove that their services were designed accordingly. To address this, the proposal aims at extending the
498 CHAMBERS.COM
Powered by FlippingBook