Blå Kors chosen to run Norway’s national gambling helpline

The Norwegian gambling regulator has chosen the support group to run the service from next year.

Norway.- The addiction support group Blå Kors has been chosen to run Norway’s national gambling helpline from next year. In March, the Norwegian gambling regulator Lottstift announced a public tender after the current operator Sykehuset Innlandet, the health trust for the provinces of Hedmark and Oppland, said it no longer wanted to run the service.

Blå Kors currently runs treatment services for money and computer game addiction in three cities. It will create a new body, Blue Cross Gambling Addiction, to run the national telephone helpline and remote-based treatment. Existing staff are expected to be kept on at the helpline’s office in Hamar.

Trine Stensen, secretary general of Blå Kors, said: “Blue Cross has extensive experience in treating various addiction problems, including gambling addiction, and we want to expand our work in this area.”

According to the gambling regulator, 23,000 Norwegians have a gambling problem. In 2022, 825 calls were made to the helpline.

Lottstift senior health advisor Lars Petter Degnepoll of the Norwegian Lottery Authority, said: “The helpline is an important low threshold offer for players and their relatives. It can be the start of getting out of the problem. Blue Cross has worked with gambling problems for a long time, and is well equipped to take over the helpline.”