Kindred to defy order to exit Norway despite threat of fines
The Swedish online gambling operator says it will appeal against the Norwegian regulator’s fines.
Norway.- Kindred says that it will continue to target Norwegian players despite the national regulator Lotteritilsynet’s announcement that it will begin imposing daily fines for as long as the operator remains active. The group says that it will appeal the decision to impose fines on its Trannel subsidiary.
Lotteritilsynet has announced that it will fine Trannel NOK1.198m (€116,000) per day from October 5 until the operator leaves the market, which has only two licensed operators: the state-controlled Norsk Tipping and Norsk Rikstoto.
Kindred claims that it is not breaking the law because Norway’s monopoly system is a breach of European Economic Area rules on the free movement of service. Kindred claims it can operate under European law because it has a Maltese licence.
CEO Henrik Tjärnström said: “We will appeal the Lotteritilsynet decision regarding the issuance of this sanction fee and will continue operating as usual, as long as the legal process is ongoing. We want to see how it pans out.”
He added: “We dispute the claim that we have operations in Norway. We are licensed in Malta and believe that Norwegian customers under current European economic legislation have the right to play on foreign sites if they wish. Nothing sets Norway apart from other European states in that respect.”
Tjärnström believes that Norway will eventually give up on its current system and open a competitive regulated market with licences for private companies.
He said: “Time will tell as the process proceeds, but we are not doing anything wrong in Norway today. We accept traffic from Norwegian customers who find us in Malta and that is part of the legal framework that, in our opinion, prevails here. That’s our position. We are confident that we are doing nothing wrong and look forward to moving towards a locally regulated market in Norway as well.”
Earlier this month, Norsk Tipping, one of Norway’s two legal gambling operators, announced that it would stop all sports betting advertising on TV. The move is part of a series of measures from Norsk Tipping to reduce its marketing.
It said it would reduce its total marketing spend and would also stop sending SMS messages to promote gambling. The operator said that since Discovery Europe had complied with the country’s ban on the broadcast of gambling adverts from unlicensed operators, it no longer needs to market its own offer so visibly.
