The Government of Sweden has submitted a report to Lagrådet, the country’s Law Council, featuring a number of proposals that aim to see illegal operators from the Swedish gambling sector suspended. Part of the measures also aims at putting an end to one of the foul practices known in sports as match-fixing.
As revealed by the Government, the new measures are expected to be introduced in a piece of legislation before July 1st, 2023.
A proposal featuring several new legislative measures was presented by the country’s Government to the Swedish Parliament on May 17th, 2022. The proposals include several measures, which are primarily focused on enhancing consumer protection and ensuring the long-term sustainability of the local gambling market. Ardalan Shekarabi, Sweden’s Minister of Social Security, has welcomed the proposal and described it as another step to make sure that the local gambling sector is healthy and safe.
Also, earlier this week, Swedish Moderaterna Party submitted a provisional mandate unveiling its plans to overhaul the country’s gambling industry in case it wins the autumn elections. The party’s mandate has already been submitted to the Riksdag, which is the highest-decision-making assembly in Sweden.
Suspension of Unlicensed Gambling Companies and Preventing Match-Fixing Among the Key Measures
As mentioned above, part of the measures included in the Government’s proposal aims at suspending unlicensed gambling operators from the country’s gambling market. The proponents of the measures suggest that the Swedish Gambling Act of 2018 should provide the Government with the chance to decree regulations regarding the obligation of payment service operators to provide information used by unlicensed operators in payment intermediation. They believe that the existing provisions on payment blocking should be eliminated.
Furthermore, it was suggested that the Swedish Gambling Authority is given the opportunity to make a “test purchase” of gaming services online, which means to purchase them under a hidden identity. The Swedish Gambling Authority is currently the regulator that is responsible for the supervision of all gambling and lottery services in the country and is supposed to make sure that the local gambling market is safe, reliable and operated in line with Sweden’s laws. The watchdog reports to the Ministry of Finance.
The proposed measures would help the local regulatory body could put an end to the quite ineffective mechanism to suspend payments, and it will become easier for the Swedish Gambling Authority to actually block payments. In addition, the new rules would allow the watchdog to investigate local payment service providers that are violating the country’s Payment Services Act when processing payments linked to gambling.
Prevention of match-fixing in local sports has also been among the proposed measures, as the Government is aimed at providing sports federations and licensees with the methodology to process personal data in order to uncover such foul practices. It was also suggested that gambling license holders should provide, at the request of the Police, all necessary information at times of investigation into alleged crimes linked to gambling products or services.
