Swedish lawmakers prep for gambling regulatory crackdown

Gambling operators in Sweden may soon have a lot more in common with their UK counterparts than they’d prefer. That’s because Swedish lawmakers are discussing a major regulatory crackdown on the Swedish-facing gambling industry.
In particular, members of Sweden’s legislative body and cabinet members, led by Minister of Social Security, Ardalan Shekarabi, are discussing how they further regulate the advertising practices of Swedish-facing gambling operators. Their reasoning is that, in doing so, they can root out potential illegal activity such as money laundering.
The effort to bring the regulatory hammer down on the Swedish gambling industry is being led by the Swedish Minister of Social Security, Ardalan Shekarabi. Shekarabi has been leading the charge for regulatory reform of the gambling industry for quite some time and took the lead in writing the online gambling bill that effect last year.
In a statement reported on by SBC News, Shekarabi lauded his work saying, “I am happy with the whole thing, but there is still an area where we will have to spend a lot of our energy in the coming months, and that is advertising. Here we have to regain control, as we need to tighten up the law to remove the aggressive game advertising, especially with regards to dangerous elements that are attached to online casinos.”
Not surprisingly, Gustav Hoffstedt, Secretary-General of Swedish online gambling trade body BOS had a different opinion of the situation. “Only the Minister believes this. Everyone else has received the alarming message from his own expert authority at Spelinspektionen is below the government’s target of 90 percent, and that the sewerage will continue to decline. The licensing system is leaking players (to the black market),” he said.
In short, 2020 is shaping up to be a tough year for Swedish-facing gambling operators.