With the Market Rebounding in Q1, Sweden Appears Ready to Continue Optimising Regulation

Swedish gaming companies showed year-on-year growth from the quarter when the pandemic struck.

The Q1 Total

The SEK 6.2bn total take for Swedish gaming companies represents a 5.1% year-on-year increase from Q1 2020, while commercial online gaming and betting increased 7.7% to SEK 3.9bn.

Freeing up the Regulators

The preliminary total of SEK 6.2bn ($744 million) for Q1 2021 generated by Swedish gaming companies reported by Swedish gambling regulator Spelinspektionen from Swedish Tax Agency data indicates the time is at hand to continue adapting Sweden's newly liberalised regulation model.

Lottery Up, Others Drop

Lottery games also showed a slight increase--from SEK 1.1bn to SEK 1.4bn, but some revenue drops visible across state casino games; national lotteries; hall bingo and land-based commercial gaming.

Minimal Land-Based Contributions

Land-based state-run casino games from Casino Cosmopol were shuttered from January to March 2021, resulting in no revenue at all during the pandemic.

Restaurant casino take also predictably suffered, bringing in SEK 6m compared to the 2020 Q1 total of SEK 52m.

The Market

At this point 101 companies holding active licences in the Sweden jurisdiction, of which 71 were licensed for online betting or commercial gaming.

Play Exclusions

Spelinspektionen further reported nearly 63,000 people were suspended from play (6% increase year-on-year).

Regulation Goals

These figures are key indicators of the state of adaptation of the still new Sweden liberalised market, which just came on-line on 1 January 2019. The new Gambling Act was designed to increase the regulation stronger of gambling advertising while introducing the first national licencing system for gambling operators.

The adaption continues, with the figures indicating the weathering of the Covid storm set to free regulator focus to return to the original ongoing task at hand originally intended by the Gambling Act.

Current Stage

At this point, the responsibility for protecting players is placed clearly in the hands of licenced operators in Sweden, with operators who fail to comply being subject to penalties from Spelinspektionen ranging from injunctions on correcting operational shortcomings to prohibitions, fines, penalties and licence revocation.

Regulatory Agencies

Spelinspektionen is aided by the Swedish Consumer Agency as the supervisory authority for the Gambling Act’s marketing rules.

Outlook

With the market rebounding, look for stronger advertising guidelines to be addressed in Sweden next.