Swedish ombudsman upholds complaint over gambling self-exclusion system
Spelpaus originally required e-identification to confirm player exclusions.
Sweden.- The Swedish gambling regulator Spelinspektionen has been criticised in a report by the country’s Ombudsman. The national watchdog admonished the regulator for previously not being able to exclude people from gambling without electronic identification.
The Ombudsman had received a complaint regarding a person who requested to be banned from gambling in the summer of 2024 without electronic identification. It took Spelinspektionen approximately a month to process the person’s request. The Ombudsman found that information about why the processing was delayed should have been better.
Since the summer of 2024, the regulator has had procedures for handling suspensions through Spelpaus without e-ID. However, the system was originally built with the assumption that Spelinspektionen would not handle any suspensions manually, which meant that players were required to confirm their suspension with e-identification.
In the spring of 2024, a court ruled that there were no special requirements for how the registration should be carried out, leading the Swedish gambling regulator to begin developing a solution to be able to handle suspensions manually.
Operator warned over lack of responsible gaming logos
Meanwhile, Spelinspektionen has rapped SkillOnNet after it found that the operator lacked responsible gaming logos on one of its sites. The Prime Casino site was found to have no logos linking to tools such as deposit limits or gambling exclusion.
The regulator noted that under Section 17 of its safer gambling regulations and general guidelines (LIFS 2018:2), licensed gambling sites must have these visible. Head of department Patrik Gustavsson has told SkillOnNet to add the required logos at the top of the site in question.
In other enforcement action, the regulator has issued a formal ban against Nixxe BV, which it said it found providing online gaming to in Sweden without the necessary licence.
