Danish gambling regulator sets eyes on social media influencers

Spillemyndigheden has outlined plans to combat unlicensed gambling this year.

Denmark.- The Danish gambling regulator Spillemyndigheden has reported that it will target new illegal gambling threats on social media. It said it would work with tech platform operators to go after streamers and influencers promoting unlicensed gambling sites.

The regulator took action against a streamer last year, having filed a report after repeated warnings. This initial case led to a fine in August after the police agreed that the streamer had breached Denmark’s Gaming Act. Spillemyndigheden says it has since reported two more cases to the police. It said it will continue to monitor this activity.

Now Spillemyndigheden says it is expanding its working partnerships with the likes of Facebook, Apple and Google to remove illegal gambling apps and ads.

“We are working to establish more collaborations with other media where we see that illegal gambling or the illegal dissemination of gambling is taking place,” it said.

Danish enforcement actions in 2023

Meanwhile, Spillemyndigheden said that it would continue DNS blocking in 2024. It said Stake.com was the highest-profile operator that it blocked last year. It said that Danish traffic to the 227 sites it had blocked by the end of 2022 was down from 15.8 million in 2017 to 1.8 million in 2023, showing that some users are bypassing the DNS blocking.

The regulator also conducted 34 inspections at pubs in Denmark last year, resulting in two police reports on illegal gambling, including lotteries. It also reported 17 cases of venues offering poker, gaming machines or betting terminals without permits.