BOS – the Swedish Trade Association for Online Gambling – and the government-owned gambling company Svenska Spel are exchanging opinions on suggested proposals for restrictions on the gambling market with each publishing an op-ed in Sweden’s largest business newspaper, Dagens Industri.

Svenska Spel believes, among several proposals, that games should be risk classified and that high-risk games should be subject to special restrictions, including in terms of marketing.

BOS believes that such a restriction would primarily affect online casino, the product group that is already exposed to the toughest competition from unlicensed and often illegal gambling companies. And that the proposal thus undermines consumer protection.

“If Svenska Spel’s proposal was to go through, even greater market shares await unlicensed and illegal online casinos. It is a natural consequence if the legal licensed gambling companies are prevented or prohibited from marketing themselves and their products. The proposal that Svenska Spel dresses up in the name of consumer protection would therefore, on the contrary, harm consumer protection, as we know that a transition from licensed to unlicensed gambling entails an increased risk of problem gambling,” says BOS Secretary General Gustaf Hoffstedt.

“In addition, it can be noted that marketing restrictions, or even an advertising ban, for online casino would benefit Svenska Spel commercially. This is because the company sells both lottery tickets on the monopoly market and online casino on the competitive market, under the same brand. A ban on advertising for online casino would mean an enormous advantage for the monopolist Svenska Spel, which then, as the only operator on the Swedish gambling market, can indirectly continue to advertise online casino via its lottery products,” BOS Secretary General Gustaf Hoffstedt concludes.

Svenska Spel’s op-ed is available here in Swedish, signed by CEO Anna Johnson, published on October 1.

BOS’s op-ed is available here in Swedish, signed by Gustaf Hoffstedt, published today, October 6.