Swedish Gambling Trade Body Calls for Overhaul of Enforcement Approach
The Swedish Trade Association for Online Gambling (BOS) has called on Sweden’s gambling regulator, Spelinspektionen, to reform its supervisory framework by adopting working methods utilized by other national regulatory bodies, including the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (FI), the Swedish Schools Inspectorate (SSI), and the Stockholm County Administrative Board.
In a newly published comparative study authored by law firm Nordic Legal, BOS targets Spelinspektionen's heavy-handed reliance on sanction fees and formalistic enforcement. According to BOS Secretary General Gustaf Hoffstedt, the licensed gambling market would benefit significantly if Spelinspektionen aligned its supervisory procedures more closely with broader Swedish administrative practices.
The report takes specific issue with the regulator's approach to financial penalties and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) oversight. BOS argues that agencies like the FI and Stockholm County set sanction fees at lower, more proportionate percentages of their maximum statutory ranges frequently below 20–27% for the FI and under 5% for the Stockholm County Administrative Board aligning penalties more fairly with turnover and offense severity. Furthermore, BOS advocates for a "system-oriented" AML framework that evaluates an operator’s complete compliance structure and risk model rather than issuing heavy sanctions based on small customer file samples. The study notes that 11 out of 12 recent AML decisions by Spelinspektionen were based on narrow samples of 5 to 15 customer files without evaluating firm-wide risk assessments.
This critique comes amid ongoing sector-wide debate regarding Sweden's channelization rate following the end of the state monopoly in 2019. While overall market channelization stands at 84% and sports betting reaches 95%, online casino channelization trails at 68%. BOS maintains that overly rigid enforcement and narrow game definitions put licensed operators at a competitive disadvantage against the offshore market, urging the regulator to adopt a more balanced, risk-based approach to safeguard long-term compliance and consumer protection.
