The Moderate Party politician tabled the motion in Sweden’s parliament yesterday (2 October) alongside several others that would aim to re-examine Swedish gambling law.
It follows the country increasing the gambling tax in July, from 18% to 22%, in a move that trade bodies warned would be a boon to the black market.
The brief motion said: “The majority of players have warned that the degree of channelisation, the level of gambling that takes place in the Swedish licensed gambling market, is decreasing.
“The consequences of this are that Swedish players turn to foreign gambling companies, without a Swedish gambling license and are then not protected by Swedish consumer regulations and the Swedish duty of care in gambling.”
The MP called on the relationship between the tax rate and the channelisation rate to be investigated.
He also said the possibility of lowering the tax should be reviewed as one lever the government could pull to increase the number of players betting on legal, licensed offerings.
Nordblom also tabled two other motions that called on the parliament to ban bank transactions to unlicensed sites and for a pay-day loan self-exclusion system for problem gamblers.
The call to review the tax follows a Swedish Gaming Authority report that assessed the country’s channelisation rate at 86% using a new methodology.
This compares with the sub-50% level that existed prior to the launch of the licensing system in 2019.
The Swedish online gambling trade association BOS argued earlier in the year that the July tax hike would lead to a 1.2% to 2.5% decline in the channelisation rate.
The lobbying organisation argued this translated to 591 to 1,247 new problem gambling cases.
BOS secretary general Gustaf Hoffstedt said at the time: “At the price of a modest net addition to the treasury, the tax increase creates around one thousand new cases of people with gambling problems.
“Thus, gambling problems that would never have occurred without the increase in the gambling tax.
“The government should completely overhaul its gambling policy and instead protect and strengthen the legal gambling market, which offers the consumer protection all players should be able to enjoy.”
https://next.io/news/regulation/sweden-mulls-lowered-gambling-tax/