Swedish gambling regulator fines Lotto Direct for unlicensed site

The Swedish gambling regulator Spelinspektionen has fined Lotto Direct for offering games on an unlicensed site.

Sweden.- Spelinspektionen has issued a formal warning and a SEK15,000 (€1,500) fine to Lotto Direct for offering games on a site that was not covered by its Swedish licence.

The Swedish regulator said Malta-based Lotto Direct had deliberately violated its licence terms by offering games on a second website for which it had not gained a licence.  

The company has had a three-year Swedish licence for its main lottery site TheLotter.com since June 8 last year. In August 2020, it applied to extend that licence to cover a Sweden-specific domain, thelotter.se, but Spelinspektionen says the company never paid the SEK150,000 application fee and that it rejected the application as result. 

Despite the application being rejected, Lotto Direct had continued to offer games on thelotter.se.

Spelinspektionen said : “The Swedish Gaming Inspectorate states that this has been a deliberate violation of a serious nature that has been going on for a long time in this context. Against this background, the Swedish Gaming Inspectorate decides on the penalty fee of SEK 15,000.”

Last week, Spelinspektionen fined William Hill’s Mr Green subsidiary €3.1m for responsible gambling, anti-money laundering and know-your-customer failings. William Hill said it regretted the failings, which Mr Green attributed to a technical problem.

Last month, Spelinspektionen warned three online gaming operators for breaching guidance on the information that operators must display on their websites.

It found that the companies had breached section 17 of its gaming regulations since they failed to include information about deposit limits, options for self-exclusion and measuring time of play in the logout sections of their sites.