Swedish gambling regulator fines Videoslots over AML breaches

Spelinspektionen said the operator had deficiencies in document and information preservation.

Sweden.- The Swedish gambling regulator, Spelinspektionen, has issued a penalty against Videoslots for breaches of anti-money laundering rules. The regulator found that the company had insufficient customer awareness and committed failings related to keeping documents and information.

Spelinspektionen initially issued a fine of SEK 9m (€779,234) but reduced this by over half to SEK 4m after finding that the breaches were not systematic. It recognised that it was difficult to calculate how much Videoslots had benefited from the violations but said the fine was based on net turnover for the year before the failings took place.

Unlicensed gambling in Sweden

The Swedish horseracing betting operator AB Trav och Galopp (ATG) has issued a warning over channelisation in Sweden. It believes that channelisation to licensed gambling sites could be as low as 70 per cent.

ATG’s latest report suggests that traffic to unlicensed gambling sites has risen tenfold since 2019 according to its tracking. As a result, the channelisation rate in Q3 would have been between 70 and 82 per cent, the operator claims. That would be below the 82 per cent rate claimed by Spelinspektionen.

Meanwhile, parliament has approved changes to Sweden’s Gambling Act of 2018 to allow operators to process customers’ personal data to detect legal offences. The move will allow licenced operators to process data relating to legal violations “under certain circumstances”, including for the detection of criminal activity, the monitoring of suspicious betting, preventing match-fixing and enforcing legal compliance. 

The change will apply from February 1, 2025. Licensees will be able to monitor gambling accounts for unusual betting behaviours and help authorities detect incidents of match-fixing and sports corruption.