Court repeals Swedish gaming regulator’s €2m fine against Betsson
Sweden’s Administrative Court has quashed the fine that the regulator Spelinspektionen issued against Betsson last June.
Sweden.- Again a Swedish court has overturned a fine issued by the Swedish gambling regulator Spelinspektionen.
The Administrative Court has repealed the SEK20m (€2m) fine that the regulator issued against Betsson Nordic in June last year.
Spelinspektionen issued the fine and a warning against Betsson for alleged breaches of Sweden’s Gambling Act.
It said that Betsson had used convenience store chains Pressbyrån and 7-Eleven as gaming agents without them being registered as such because the stores had sold vouchers used to top up gaming accounts. Betsson appealed against the penalty.
The Administrative Court has now ruled that the situation was not covered by the Gambling Act’s provisions on gambling agents, which mention the sale of gambling products, the receipt of bets and the mediation of winnings, but not the sale of vouchers.
Spelinspektionen had also argued that Betsson’s launch of a payment card with Mastercard in March 2019 equated to the use of unauthorised bonuses because it offered access to events tickets and other items. Operators in Sweden are only allowed to offer a one-time bonus when customers sign-up for an account.
However, the Administrative Court found that Betsson’s statements about the card did not constitute offers of bonuses as contemplated in Swedish law. It concluded that Spelinspektionen had no grounds on which to issue a fine or a warning to Betsson.
Spelinspektionen may appeal the decision a the Administrative Court of Appeal in Jönköping.
Courts quash Swedish gambling regulators’ fines
The court’s decision is the third to go against the Swedish gambling regulator in recent weeks.
Last week, the Court of Appeal in Jönköping reduced penalties against Genesis Global and AG Communications to SEK1m (€95,500), less than half the original amount.
The Swedish national gambling regulator Spelinspektionen had issued fines against both companies for breaching the obligation for licensed operators to connect to Sweden’s self-exclusion tool Spelpaus. Genesis and Aspire’s AG Communications had carried out manual checks instead.
The breaches involved dated back to 2019, the year that Sweden’s licensed igaming market launched.
In another case, the Swedish Court of Appeal turned down Spelinspektionen’s request to appeal against the quashing of its injunction against Kindred’s Spooniker brand for breaching online casino deposit limits.
Spelinspektionen had fined Spooniker alongside the horserace betting operator Swedish horseracing betting operator AB Trav och Galopp (ATG) for allowing players to use a loophole to circumvent the country’s temporary SEK5,000 (€476) weekly deposit cap on online casino deposits.
However, The Administrative Court in Linköping upheld a SEK20,000 (€1,932) fine issued by the Swedish gambling regulator against the amusement park Liseberg in Gothenburg.The Swedish Gaming Inspectorate, Spelinspektionen, fined Liseberg in September for allowing minors to use claw machines.
