Spelinspektionen

What this authority does

Sweden licensed commercial online gambling from 1 January 2019, ending a period in which the state operator held the domestic monopoly while foreign sites served Swedish customers from licences held elsewhere. The authority itself, Spelinspektionen, is older than the licensing regime; it was the lottery inspectorate before it became the gambling regulator.

Two features of the Swedish rules have had an effect well beyond Sweden. The first is Spelpaus, a single national self-exclusion register: a customer who registers is locked out of every licensed operator at once, and operators are also barred from sending them direct marketing. The second is the bonus restriction, which limits a licensee to one bonus offer per customer, at the start of the relationship. Both have been studied closely by regulators writing new rules elsewhere.

The Swedish framework also carries a broad duty of care obligation, which requires an operator to act on signs of harm rather than simply to provide tools and wait. Supervision cases have tended to turn on whether that duty was met, and on marketing that the authority considered too insistent.

Licences it issues

• Commercial online gambling and betting
• State lottery and slot machines
• Charitable lottery
• Land-based casino games

What supervision concentrates on

• Licensing
• Duty of care and bonus restrictions
• The Spelpaus self-exclusion register
• Supervision of gambling software suppliers

Markets on file under this authority