Two key stakeholders in the Swedish gambling industry have found themselves at loggerheads over its regulatory future, with the topic of offshore betting activity paramount to the conversation.

The extent of overseas firms targeting Swedish players, particularly in the casino sphere, has become more apparent over recent months. The government is now looking to expand the scope of the country’s Gambling Act to set up more barriers against illegal gaming.

Against this backdrop, Svenska Spel, the state-owned lottery and gaming operator, and the Swedish Trade Association for Online Gambling (BOS), have come to a difference of opinion over how market regulation should continue to develop.

 

Battle of the op-eds

The two organisations have been exchanging words via op-eds in the same publication, Dagens Industri. Svenska Spel is arguing for the Swedish Gaming Authority, Spelinspektionen, to take on greater oversight of the market, and for consumer protection to be strengthened with new measures.

Anna Johnson, Svenska Spel CEO, mapped out 18 proposals in the op-ed published last week. These included advertising and betting threshold restrictions, greater protections for under-25s, and a ban on all bonus offers.

“The supervision of the Swedish Gambling Authority has been criticised for being ineffective, which means that the duty of care does not provide the strong protection for consumers that was intended,” Johnson said in her op-ed.

“At the same time, it is high-risk games that are driving the greatest growth – despite the fact that we know that these games are strongly linked to gambling problems and debt. If nothing is done, these factors together risk undermining trust in the regulated gambling market.”

Sweden’s betting industry was a monopoly under Svenska Spel for several decades until re-regulation in 2019 which ushered in a multi-license market. In developments similar to those unfolding in Finland in 2025, the government wanted to curb the number of offshore, unlicensed companies targeting Swedes.

As always, channelisation has been one of the key battlegrounds. The government set itself a target of +90% channelisation to its regulated online market, but so far it is only the sports betting segment that has succeeded in achieving this.

Casino channelisation is dragging the overall figure down, with the rate for this vertical standing at between 72%-82% while the overall rate stands between 85-87%.

Addressing this has become a priority for the regulator, for Svenska Spel, and the regulated industry represented by BOS – but the latter two now disagree as to how this should be done.

“If Svenska Spel’s proposal was to go through, even greater market shares await unlicensed and illegal online casinos,” said Gustaf Hoffstedt, BOS Secretary General. “It is a natural consequence if the legal licensed gambling companies are prevented or prohibited from marketing themselves and their products.”

 

A return to monopoly?

BOS accuses Svenska Spel’s 18 suggestions of going after ‘low-hanging fruits’, and seemingly of attempting to score political points.

The company’s support for a recent Swedish government report which promoted the above-mentioned plans to expand the Gambling Act was singled out as an example of this, with BOS arguing that ‘absolutely no one in the gaming market questions’ the report.

Additionally, the trade association argues that the product and marketing restrictions that Svenska Spel is proposing will have the opposite effect. Making casino products more restrictive will only make offshore unlicensed casino products more attractive, it argues.

“The company is proposing tighter restrictions for licensed online casinos. In other words, the gambling product that already has the biggest problem with competition from unlicensed gambling companies,” Hoffstedt’s op-ed read.

Lastly, arguably BOS’ biggest criticism of Svenska Spel’s proposals is that it will reverse the intentions of the 2019 Gambling Act, not just the desire to curb illegal gambling but also to open up the market to more competition.

The trade association seems convinced that the only beneficiary of Svenska Spel’s proposals is the state company itself. In an apparent dig at Svenska Spel, Hoffstedt remarked that ‘perhaps more should be demanded of the state-owned gaming company than to demand measures that commercially benefit its own operations’.

“In addition, it can be noted that marketing restrictions, or even an advertising ban, for online casino would benefit Svenska Spel commercially,” he summarised.

“This is because the company sells both lottery tickets on the monopoly market and online casino on the competitive market, under the same brand.

“A ban on advertising for online casino would mean an enormous advantage for the monopolist Svenska Spel, which then, as the only operator on the Swedish gambling market, can indirectly continue to advertise online casino via its lottery products.”

 

 

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