BOS urges the Ministry of Finance to take initiative to amend the Gambling Act

BOS – the Swedish Trade Association for Online Gambling – has today written to the Swedish Ministry of Finance with a request to amend the Gambling Act.

It is currently perfectly legal for unlicensed gambling companies and their subcontractors to accept Swedish gambling consumers as long as the companies avoid using the Swedish language and Swedish currency. This loophole has led to a massive influx of unlicensed gambling offers into the Swedish gambling market.

The reason this has happened is because the Government changed the application of the Gambling Act compared to how the proposal was originally presented by the Gambling License Investigation, the investigation that then formed the basis for the new Gambling Act and the Swedish reregulation in 2019. The Gambling License Investigation wanted to criminalize companies in general that lack a Swedish gambling license that still accept Swedish gambling consumers.

BOS is writing to the Ministry of Finance today with a request that the Government take the initiative to amend the Gambling Act in favor of the Gambling License Investigation’s original proposal.

“Unlicensed gambling should be eliminated in Sweden. It is completely inadequate that around a quarter of all gambling is unlicensed, not least given the total absence of consumer protection on the black gambling market. If we are to succeed in eliminating this part of the gambling market, the Gambling Act must be amended and all unlicensed gambling must be criminalized,” says Gustaf Hoffstedt, Secretary General of BOS.