Sweden proposed exempts on deposits limits for online gambling on race betting, but the local industry group says the facts don’t support this plan.
Last Friday, Social Security Minister Ardalan Shekarabi announced a change to his April proposal of a SEK 5,000 limit on online gambling deposits and losses, plus a SEK 100 limit for online bonus offers. Shekarabi said he was open to applying the limits only to online casino sites, exempting race and sports betting sites, with the policy intended to take effect on July 2.
Shekarabi declared that protecting consumers has been his main focus and that making changes to his plan is not a problem, as long as they are applied only to “games that, according to research, have the greatest risk of problem gambling, namely online casino.”
The changes are questioned by Branschföreningen för Onlinespel (BOS), Sweden’s online gambling industry group, who called them “incomprehensible from a consumer protection perspective.”
BOS cited recent data from Sweden’s Spelinspektionen regulator that locally licensed online gambling operators’ turnover hadn’t increased during the pandemic lockdown. Meanwhile, data from the Swedish Tax Agency indicated that betting on horseracing – which is dominated by the state-run Ab Trav Och Galopp (ATG) – rose 37% from March to April to the highest level recorded since the regulated market’s launch in January 2019.
According to BOS CEO, Gustaf Hoffstedt, not all is on the up and up.
“Shekarabi’s proposed tweaks are not intended to affect consumer protection. They are intended to provide competitive advantages to the gaming companies in which the government has interests.”
Hoffstedt believes that the restrictions are misguided and inadequately. In fact, they will accelerate the trend of Sweden’s gamblers transferring their loyalty from locally-licensed operators to internationally sites – beyond the control of the new gaming legislation.
