Swedish court overturns gambling regulator fine against Roar Vegas
The Administrative Court in Linköping ruled that the regulator failed to prove a clear breach of the operator’s duty of care obligations.
Sweden.- The Administrative Court in Linköping has overturned an SEK8m (US$854,000) fine imposed on LeoVegas’ Roar Vegas by the Swedish gambling regulator, Spelinspektionen, ruling that the regulator’s evidence lacked the clarity required to justify the penalty.
The fine, issued last March, followed a supervisory review of Roar Vegas’ responsible gambling procedures for Q1 2024. Spelinspektionen examined 12 customer accounts, focusing on high-loss players across two age groups, and found the company had not intervened quickly enough to stop the excessive gambling of three customers. Two of the customers were younger gamblers aged 18 to 24. Roar Vegas did eventually intervene, taking effective measures, but the regulator said it should have taken action sooner.
Roar Vegas denied breaching its duty of care, arguing that it maintained a layered monitoring system combining automated alerts with manual reviews, deposit limits and account suspensions, and applied a step-by-step escalation approach before imposing stricter restrictions. It also suggested that Spelinspektionen’s guidance on how licensees must fulfil their obligations contained a lack of clarity on when operators should take more intrusive measures.
In its judgment (case no. 3061-25), the Administrative Court in Linköping ruled that the duty of care does not set strict timetables for intervention and that operators must balance privacy, voluntary measures and escalation. The court concluded that the delays identified were not serious enough to constitute a breach and that Roar Vegas’ documented systems had produced measurable reductions in activity in the flagged accounts.
Spelinspektionen has three weeks from the date of the June 12 judgment to appeal the decision.
