Unlicensed Gaming Dominates the Swedish Market

Unlicensed operators dominating the market in Sweden.

The Swedish gambling watchdog, Lotteriinspektionen, has revealed the numbers for 2017, which clearly show that foreign unlicensed operators had a far more successful year than the domestic ones.

According to available data, the domestic regulated market generated a revenue of $2 billion, which was roughly the same as in 2016.

On the other hand, internationally licensed online gambling websites recorded a revenue rise of 14.6%.

Numbers Are Not Impressive

Svenska Spel, the state-owned gambling operator providing both land-based and online casino, poker, and sports betting options recorded a revenue increase less than 1%, while the ATG, nation’s horse racing operator generated a revenue rise of 3%.

Casino Cosmopol recorded a revenue drop of 4%, while local lottery operator’s revenue of $4.5 million represented a slight drop as well.

Online gambling market revenue in 2017 rose by 11.4% ($1.15 million) when compared to the figures from the year before. Domestic licensed operators generated $552.4 million in revenue, 14.9% more than in 2016.

Revenue from international gambling sites accounted for 53.3% of the overall revenue produced during the reviewed period, thus raising unlicensed foreign operators shares 24.3% of Sweden’s overall gambling market.

This represents a rise in market share of 16.5% since 2012.

Less Money Spent on Gambling

The report also revealed that Swedish adults spent around 2.2% of their income on gambling (about $700 per person), which represented a drop when compared to 2016 where this percentage stood at 2.4%.

On the other hand, international sites reported a growth in the spending rate for 2017.

Sweden has submitted the new draft for online gambling legislation to the European Commission, where the new piece of legislation should end the state’s monopoly in this market.

The new law is expected to allow foreign operators to obtain licenses from Lotteriinspektionen. The new legislature needs to be approved by the European authorities, and this should happen in 2019.

Hopefully, the approval of this law should help the domestic operators increase their revenue figures in the coming years.

The new regulatory regime will penalize those operators doing business without a license and will prevent them from offering their services to punters in Sweden.