Sweden: Kindred joins criticism of proposed new deposit limits

Sweden has proposed the reintroduction of temporary online casino deposit limits at a lower level than before.

Sweden.- Kindred Group, which has a base in the Swedish capital of Stockholm, has joined the criticism of the Swedish government’s plans to reintroduce temporary deposit limits for online casino gaming at a lower level than before.

Sweden imposed a temporary SEK5,000 (€490) deposit limit in July 2020 in a bid to prevent an increase in problem gaming during the Covid-19 pandemic.

After being extended twice, the limit was finally allowed to expire in November 2021, but with Covid-19 cases increasing again, the Swedish government is proposing to reintroduce the deposit limit – this time at SEK4,000 (€388).

The national gaming regulator Spelinspektionen has said it would have “no objections” to the measure this time around despite being critical of the original measure and noting that its impact remains unclear. However, the industry group Branschföreningen för Onlinespel (BOS) blasted the proposal in its response to a consultation period that ended on Monday.

Kindred has now added its opposition to the measure. It said: “The restrictions on the online gambling industry have been ill-founded and did not meet the criteria of evidence-based policymaking. The current proposal for gambling restrictions fails to establish explicit facts and concrete evidence as a base for the decision – we struggle to find anything positive in the ministry’s proposal.

“If the Swedish government, despite the serious objections raised, decides to move ahead with temporary gambling responsibility measures, the simplest and least problematic solution would be to impose exactly the same measures that applied during the previous restriction period.”

The new temporary deposit limit would initially apply from February 7 until June 30.