Swedish gambling regulator fines charities and political party over lottery sales tactics
The regulator found the groups’ public benefit lotteries breached marketing rules.
Sweden.- The Swedish gambling regulator Spelinspektionen normally takes enforcement action against gambling operators, but this week it announced fines against charities and political groups. The reason? Aggressive marketing and dubious sales practices for public benefit lottery operations.
Spelinspektionen initiated supervisory cases against the Swedish Breast Cancer Association and the Swedish Prostate Cancer Association over Datumlotteriet sales and against the Swedish Social Democratic Party, the Swedish Social Democratic Youth Federation and the Swedish Social Democratic Women’s Federation in relation to Kombilotteriet.
It took the action following investigations by the Swedish Consumer Agency into aggressive marketing methods used in telephone sales of lottery tickets. Spelinspektionen has fined the Social Democratic Party SEK3m (€366,400) and the Swedish Breast Cancer Association SEK1m (€91,600).
The purpose of the Spelinspektionen’s intervention was to check how the licensees comply with the Gaming Act’s requirements regarding responsibility for gaming operations and consumer protection, specifically regarding commission agreements and telephone sales.
It concluded that the licensees violated the requirements that gaming operations must be conducted in a healthy and safe manner with strong consumer protection and breached rules on the moderation of marketing. It found that lottery telephone sales were not conducted under controlled and secure conditions, which is why the legal conditions to commission someone else to carry this out did not exist.
All five organisations have licences to offer gaming for public benefit purposes in the form of lotteries. The case against Kombilotteriet was sparked by an investigation by the newspaper Dagens Nyheter. The lottery is run by Kombispel, which is a subsidiary of A-lotteries, owned by the Social Democrats and the Swedish Student Union.
The licensees told the gambling regulator they had hired Kombispel to create and run the lottery and that Kombispel had recruited an external telemarketing firm for marketing and sales.
In the case of Datumlotteriet, the investigation found that people had received invoices for tickets they had not ordered and some people complained that they had found themselves signed up for donation subscriptions they never agreed to. The charities also blamed a third-party company that had hired an external telemarketing provider for sales and marketing.
However, Spelinspektionen said they were responsible for monitoring operations run by contractors.
It said: “The licensees have full responsibility for the gaming operations, including the operations entrusted to contractors. The Swedish Consumer Agency’s assessment that the licensees have used aggressive business methods and thereby violated the Marketing Act remains unchanged, despite the licensees having taken corrective measures.”
Scrutiny of More Tech Group
Earlier this month, Spelinspektionen announced that it had begun supervisory proceedings against the licensed gambling operator More Tech Group, which runs lottoexperten.se, lottoexperten.com and superlottoclub.com. It said it would probe whether the company has complied with regulatory obligations under Sweden’s Gambling Act, including gaining written consent for telephone sales, the ban on the promotion of gambling on credit, and verifying player identities against Spelpaus, the national self-exclusion register.
More tech group, owned by Polar group technologies, is registered in east London and linked to the debt collection company Great Week and Polarlotto. Swedish media report that they have British gambling licences and have been linked to around 40 complaints received by the Swedish regulator.
