The Swedish gaming regulatory body Lotteriinspektionen announced on Friday that it had received more than 60 applications from gambling operators. Sweden’s regulated gambling market will present an opportunity for gambling operators to reap legal revenue from next year.
At least 55 of these applicants are seeking online casino and sports betting licenses in the liberalized gambling market, which will kick in action on January 1, 2019. Lotteriinspektionen said that some of the applications were incomplete and it had started information operators to complete their applications or risk disapproval from the authority.
The authority suggests that it does not have “concrete answers” to questions submitted by the operators who seek specifics on authority’s responsible gaming and match integrity obligations. It also said that it “cannot provide advance notice” of how the new gambling legislation in the country should be interpreted in terms of marketing and advertising limitations. Lotteriinspektionen noted that these questions would be answered through jurisprudence.
Lotteriinspektionen director general Camilla Rosenberg clarified that the period between the approval of the new gambling law by Swedish legislators and the launch of the new market was extremely short. Hence, the authority is working its way to interpret the law correctly. Rosenberg emphasized that the regulator’s top priority in autumn is to process all applications and make decisions about the license.
LeoVegas VP Louise Nylen spoke at a Stockholm seminar last week about the new laws, suggesting that the government should clarify the scope of the law before distributing licenses. The local financial tabloid Dagens Industri quoted Nylen, who cautioned Sweden against adopting strict advertising rules for gambling operators. Nylen referred to Italy’s blanket ban on gambling advertising, which led to foreign operators reaching to the top of Google’s search rankings.
As Sweden receives a ton of applications from operators, it can present an example to other European nations on how to channelize local gamblers to locally licensed sites and earn a healthy revenue stream. In terms of Sweden, the taxation could be 18 percent of revenue, which could easily be offset through sensible gambling regulations on gambling operations as well as advertising such products.
Sweden could also outpace Poland, which launched its liberalized online gambling market in April last year. So far, Poland has issued only ten licenses to online operators, who are complaining about the authority’s bias against anything other than sports betting and 12 percent taxes on turnover.
https://www.knowcasino.co.nz/swedish-gaming-regulatory-receives-over-60-applications-from-gambling-operator/186/