The National Audit Office has commissioned an investigation into the Swedish Gambling Authority’s supervision of the Swedish gambling market. The result was published in a report that is published on the National Audit Office’s website.

The Swedish Trade Association for Online Gambling (BOS) agrees with the National Audit Office’s recommendation that a review of the Gambling Act’s so-called scope of application should take place. The scope governs which unlicensed gambling companies are illegal. Not all unlicensed gambling companies are, according to the current scope, illegal. Typically, unlicensed gambling companies that offer their games in the English language and in the euro currency are legal. Only unlicensed gambling companies that use clear Swedish markers, such as the Swedish language on the website, Swedish-speaking customer service and Swedish krona as currency, are defined as illegal. All other unlicensed gambling companies can continue to sell their games to the Swedish gambling market, with the support of the Gambling Act.

“That today’s gambling legislation allows such extensive parts of the gambling market to operate without a license is unsustainable. In front of both the current and previous governments, we have advocated an expansion of the Gambling Act’s scope of application. In this way, it would become generally illegal for gambling companies that lack a Swedish gambling license to accept Swedish gambling consumers, and as a consequence these companies must geoblock Sweden. It is very welcome that the National Audit Office reasons in a similar way in the report published today,” says Gustaf Hoffstedt, Secretary General, BOS.

The section on the Gambling Act’s scope of application can be found in the report’s chapter 5.4, “The Gambling Act’s current scope of application complicates the work against illegal gambling”

There is also a summary in English in the report.