Certainly, one of the most relevant and leading corporations in Sweden, as far as the gambling industry is concerned, Svenska Spel, has a plethora of reasons to be proud of themselves.
What Did They Achieve That Was So Significant?
Namely, according to some reports, their gaming machine and lottery division has earned around SEK906m (which is £74.6m/€86.9m/$97.6m) in the first two months of activity in Sweden’s brand-new regulated gaming market.
One of the things that surely contributed to this achievement is their monopoly business which continues to influence the market.
Furthermore, Spelinspektionen recently uncovered that various successful operators in January and February were the ones that made around 85% of market traffic.
What Does This Information Mean?
This brings us to the conclusion that that total market turnover in this period of time was SEK3.3bn.
Since the start of the year, over seventy licenses have been granted, even though the numbers are not referring to turnover for gambling operations conducted for public utility purposes, such as the Postcode Lottery.
AB Trav och Galopp (ATG), the former horse racing monopoly that has become a private company under the new regulated market, took second place with turnover of SEK667m. Svenska Spel’s Sport & Casino division, came in third place with turnover of SEK385m.
Kindred Group, an online operator, has become one of the leaders in the market, beating Svenska Spel’s land-based casino subsidiary, Casino Cosmopol.
Namely, they had a turnover of SEK247m, while Cosmopol was doing slightly worse with a turnover of SEK148m during January and February.
What Happened To Other Casinos?
For instance, Bet365 stated that they earned SEK117m. Right behind them was LeoVegas with SEK103m, while a trio of websites utilizing Trustly’s Pay N Play tool made up the rest of the top ten.
Hero Gaming did a solid job with SEK80m, Global Gaming also did okay with SEK78m, and Snabbare, an operator placed in Malta generated SEK61m.
An Important Topic That Mustn’t Be Forgotten:
All these statistics seem very promising, but still there are some things concerning this industry that should not be neglected.
One of them is advertising. Namely, we’ve recently written about what Spelinspektionen did when it comes to this topic and what precautions must be made to prevent excessive promotions.
This issue has reminded two major operator associations, Branschforeningen for Onlinespel (BOS) and Spelbranschens Riksforbund (SPER), what their next step is, so they’ve established a new code of conduct for members.
Last week, operators and the regulator met and Spelinspektionen uncovered that the use of the promotions restrictions represents a major step forward.
Maria MacDonald of gaming-focused law firm, Nordic Gambling, talked to iGamingBusiness.com and gave her advice concerning promotions and ads. She stated:
“With regards to commercial messages, operators were amongst other things encouraged to take special care when it comes to exaggerating the chances of winning and the Consumer Agency also told operators to refrain from the use of so called ‘take-over adverts’ or ‘pop-ups’ online that consumers need to click on in order to remove.”
“The Consumer Agency also brought up that individuals which have self-excluded through the national self-exclusion register still seem to receive direct marketing on a regular basis and underlined that operators will regarded as responsible also for actions from affiliates,” she added.
Source: “Svenska Spel Leads The Way In Regulated Swedish Market” https://www.igamingbusiness.com/news/svenska-spel-leads-way-regulated-swedish-market. iGaming Business. April 8, 2019.
