The two main legal instruments governing gambling in Sweden, are, The Lotteries Act (1994)Lotterilagen and The Casinos Act (1999) Kasinolag. These Acts ensure that all gambling remains under the control of the Swedish state and its agencies.

The Gaming Board of Sweden (Lotteriinspektionen) has overall responsibility for licensing and supervision within the field of gambling. It is charged with issuing permits for: lotteries that are distributed by means of electromagnetic waves, lotteries that are to be arranged in more than one county, gaming machines and games of roulette, dice and card arranged pursuant to the Lotteries Act. The Gaming Board also monitors compliance with the Lotteries Act and the Casinos Act.

The Lottery Act currently makes it a criminal offence to promote gambling services that are not licenced by the Swedish state. Underlying the Act is a belief that restrictions on private operators are justified on the basis of maintaining public order and preventing crime and addicition. The Act also aims to direct the surplus funds that accrue from gambling to the public, through the financing of social activities. (It is somewhat ironic perhaps, that the company A-lotterierna sells lottery tickets on behalf of the Swedish Social Democratic Party).

In 1934, the Swedish government, led by Per Albin Hansson, moved to counter illegal gambling through the establishment of Tipstjänst, a private bookmaker subject to tight regulation. In 1943 the state bought up all of the shares in Tipstjänst and nationalised the company. The nationalised company then merged with a smaller state lottery in 1997 and became known as Svenska Spel.

The operations of Svenska Spel include betting at sporting events and dog racing, the operation of gaming machines and the organisation of lotteries. The operations of ATG are betting at horse races. The public benefit organisations organise lotteries and bingo.

Changes to The Lotteries Act in 1 August 2002, enabled SvenskaSpel to embrace digital platforms; with customers now able to play the instant scratch card games Triss, Tia, Skrap-Bingo and Skrap-Pyramid online. The law also allowed AB Trav och Galopp (ATG), to market its services through digital media.

In November 2005 the Swedish Government also granted Svenska Spel the right to introduce online poker in conjunction with the online gaming software provider Boss Media. Sweden's Deputy Prime Minister Bosse Ringholm justified the decision by saying that it would ensure that those Swedes that chose to play online poker would do so with organisations that were under the control of the Swedish state. He was no doubt heartened when Ladbrokes, announcing their results for the six months to June 30 2006 stated that; "Poker gross win grew by 15% to £21.3 million, impacted by increased competition, particularly in Sweden with the launch of the state lottery poker site."

There have been a number of judgements down the years, where the Swedish Courts have ruled in favour of the continuation of the Swedish monopoly. In Wermdö Krog, for example, the Swedish Administrative Supreme Court ruled that the monopoly existed to protect the individual and society at large and to pursue public interest objectives.

In response to a letter of formal notice sent by the European Commission on 19 October 2004 , which stated that gambling monopolies must have the objective of limiting betting opportunities in a consistent and systematic manner, the Court upheld the notion that Swedish betting laws were proportional and non-discriminatory; with a slight criticism of the nature and extent of Svenska Spel's advertising policy.

Also in October 2004, in a case concerning a restaurant that had acted as an intermediary for the bookmaker SSP, the Court again held that the restrictions placed upon foreign operators by current Swedish law were proportionate. Of note, was the fact that the Court did not assess Swedish gaming policy in concreto, in light of the Gambelli requirements laid down by the European Court of Justice.

In June 2005, the Swedish Supreme Administrative Court decided not to overturn a decision by the Swedish government to reject an application from Ladbrokes to be allowed to set up betting operations in Sweden. After the ruling, Douglas Roos, Ladbrokes' Nordic CEO, infamously told Svenska Dagbladet that the judgement was "made to order for the government, " and that "The judges are totally lacking in integrity." At the time of writing, Ladbrokes is still offering a Swedish language betting service.

Ladbrokes had previously tested Swedish law through launching an internet scratch card called "Trippel" designed to compete with Svenskaspel's own scratch card "Triss". Ladbrokes placed an ad for Trippel in the Swedish daily newspaper Aftonbladt, but it was not long before the Gaming Board reported the newspaper to the police and the ads were pulled. In January 2007, Ladbrokes acquired Sponsio Ltd, its online betting and gaming partner in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland, in a deal worth up to 40 million sterling.

Sveska Spel's 2003 Annual Report is full of marketing references which would seem to suggest that the company has not been engaged in limiting the exploitation of the human passion for gambling; " .......increased by 3.5%, not least due to energetic marketing........Svenska Spel did not actively market the (internet) channel until 2003. The results of the marketing campaign were not long in coming. Visitor impressions on the site tripled to about 600,000 a month and more than 100,000 new gaming accounts were registered in a very short time.........." Gaming on Svenska Spel's internet channel increased sharply by slightly more than 60% in 2003 to SEK 495 million. The company has also openly embraced M-Betting, and, as previously noted it has launched an online poker website.

In January 2006, an official inquiry into the Sweden betting market, concluded that under Swedish law there is no realistic way of stopping offshore online betting companies from targeting Swedish consumers ; "I'm convinced that with today's legislation we'd have trouble with EU law, and we need a plan B for when the cruel winds start blowing from Brussels," said the reports author Jan Francke. The report, which also proposed a model which would allow foreign companies to apply for licences to organise online betting, was handed over to Sven-Erik Österberg, the Minister for Financial Market Issues, who was quoted as saying; " "I don't want to put my foot down today. What we have to do now is research this proposal further."

On 4 April 2006 the European Commission sent official requests for information on national legislation restricting the the supply of sport betting services to seven Member States - Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden. The Commission asks whether the measures in question are compatibile with Article 49 of the EC Treaty. This decision relates only to the compatibility of the national measures in question with existing EU law, and only to the field of sports betting. It does not touch upon the existence of monopolies as such, or on the matter of national lotteries. The request does however represent the first step towards the launching of a legal challenge at the European Court of Justice against those states that are seen to be violating EU law.

Charlie McCreevy, the EU internal market commissioner whilst acknowleding that there were national "sensitivities" surrounding gambling, was reported as saying; "The Commission has an obligation under [EU] treaties to ensure that member states' legislation is fully compatible with EU law."

In June 2006 Sweden's Gaming board reported the editors of the newspapers Expressen and Metro and the magazines Slitz and Spray to the police for publishing adverts from foreign gambling companies. Previous rulings at the district court level against Expressen editor Otto Sjöberg and Nerikes Allehanda editor Krister Linnér had established the illegality of publishing such advertisements. In response to these rulings the Swedish Gaming Board's chief legal officer Håkan Hallstedt had stated; "These rulings mean that doubt is now eradicated....The law applies and we can act more forcefully against those that choose to ignore it."

An announcement by Svenska Spel in July 2006 that it intended to target Baltic States "to export knowledge, games and gaming responsibility" was met by the following comment by the redoubtable Oliver Drewes, spokesperson for the European Commission; "One could question whether the Nordic monopolies should enter into other markets while they are supposedly trying to protect their own monopolist positions."

In August 2006 a survey by industry newspaper Dagens Media revealed that a majority of Swedish MPs believed that Svenska Spel should be forced to reduce the amount that it spends on advertising.

Prior to the recent Swedish General Election, the leader of the victorious Moderate Party Fredrik Reinfeldt, stated that his party would consider getting rid of the current gambling monopoly and replacing it with a regulated betting market that allows private companies to apply for gaming licences. Following the election, Reinfeldt's coalition partners, the Christian Democrats and the Liberal Party expressed support for this view, with Sweden's new minister for financial markets Mats Odell telling Swedish Radio that the current situation was'pure wild west', and simply unsustainable.

The smart money said that it would only be a matter of time before Ladbrokes was opening its first betting shop on Drottninggatan. A view strengthened, when in June 2007 the European Commission formally requested France and Sweden to amend their gambling laws following consideration of their replies to letters of formal notice sent in April and October 2006. These formal requests took the form of "reasoned opinions", the second stage of the infringement procedure laid down in Article 226 of the EC Treaty. If there is no satisfactory reply within two months, the Commission may refer the matter to the European Court of Justice.

However, in August 2007, the Swedish Government surprised many observers, when it refused to bow to demands from the European Commission that it should throw open its betting market to non-Swedish companies.

In its official response, to a Commission request of June 2007, the Swedish government said that while it has and will consider such demands, it has no intention to implementing changes to Sweden's gambling laws. Moreover, the Swedish government went on to say that it sees those aspects of Swedish law that are deemed to be incompatibe with EU law, as actually being totally acceptable, in as much as they serve their stated purpose of strengthen social security and countering criminal activity’.

A visit to Expressen's website on Friday 12 October 2007, meanwhile, reveals that the warnings to it to cease carrying adverts for online gambling groups has gone unheeded, with adverts for Unibet, Sportingbet and Expekt clearly visible. Expressen, meanwhile, has now entered the online betting market, through the establishment of an online bingo website, Sting.se, in association with Folkspel and the software provider NYX Interactive.

A report by Dr Kalle Tryggvesson, published in October 2007, highlighted the fact that a significant preportion of Swedish gamblers were becoming addicted to online poker. Not soon afterwards, it was reported that Svenska Spel now had 110,000 active poker players, with rake of SEK283 million (€31.0 million) during the first nine months of the year.

In the perverse logic that underpins Sweden's gambling policy, it can be stated that at least they are getting addicted to online poker provided by the Swedish State (sic).....Svenska Spel's very own home grown addicts.

On October 27 2007, Sweden's governing party, the Moderate Party voted at its annual conference in Gävle on Saturday to come out in favour of the liberalisation of the Swedish betting market; including the sale of Svenska Spel and ATG.

In January 2008, the editor and former editor of Sweden's largest daily newspaper, Aftonbladet, asked Charlie McCreevy to step up his legal action against the country over their discriminatory gambling restrictions. Aftonbladet, which is facing threats from Sweden's gaming board and prosecutors for accepting advertisements from rival gaming operators, said that the enactment of the gambling ban against it would deprive it of 8.5 million euros ($12.7 million) a year in revenue.

On January 31 2008 he European Commission said that it had decided to send an official request for information on national legislation restricting the supply and promotion of certain gambling services to Sweden.

In this new case the Commission wishes to verify whether all national measures relating to poker games and tournaments are consistent and therefore compatible with Article 49 of the EC Treaty, which guarantees the free movement of services. The Commission said that its decision does not touch upon the existence of monopolies as such, or on national lotteries. Nor does it have any implications for the liberalisation of the market for gambling services generally, or for the entitlement of Member States to seek to protect the general interest, so long as this is done in a manner consistent with EU law i.e. that any measures are necessary, proportionate and non-discriminatory.

This latest inquiry into Swedish national gambling restrictions focuses on various issues relating to poker games and tournaments. The Commission said that a Member State cannot invoke the need to restrict its citizens’ access to betting services if at the same time it incites and encourages them to participate in state lotteries, games of chance or betting which benefits the state’s finances.

On 6 February 2008, the Swedish Supreme Court granted the editors of Aftonbladet and Expressen the right to appeal against their criminal prosecutions for accepting advertisements from foreign online betting companies. The decision obliges the Swedish Court of Appeal to consider whether Swedish gambling laws are compatible with Europena legilsation and the opinions laid down by the European Court in recent cases such as Placanica.

It was anticipated by many, that Sweden's Ministry of Finance would announce on 15 December 2008, a new set of measures that would put an end to Svenska Spel's monopoly of the Swedish betting market. Jan Nyren, the person responsible for the new plans, was said to have favoured an open door licencing system, that would see foreign betting operators enter the Swedish market for the first time. However, when the time came for the Ministry to make its announcement, it was clear that there was nothing new on the table, as regards the Swedish Government's position regarding the opening of its betting market to outside operators.

To cite this article: Niall.A.O'Connor (2008) "Sweden's gambling industry and the long road to liberalisation" (Bettingmarket.Com).