Q&A: Regulation in Sweden: Six weeks on

The last six months have seen unprecedented changes for both the Swedish gambling industry and the Swedish gambling regulator, culminating in the rebranding of the regulator from its previous nomenclature as Lotteriinspektionen to Spelinspektionen and the launch of the new gambling market in January.

In any new market launch, there are always errors in judgment, missed opportunities and even unexpected benefits. As Swedish gambling emerges from its busiest ever regulatory period, Camilla Rosenberg, director general of Spelinspektionen, reflects on how going through this process has changed the way the Swedish regulator works.

EGR Compliance: Was six months too short a period to fully draft, craft and create a successful re-regulated market in Sweden?
Camilla Rosenberg (CR): There was an extremely short period of time for Spelinspektionen and the industry to get everything in place in order to be able to process the applications. The Swedish Parliament decided on a new Gambling Act in June 2018 and the Spelinspektionen received the first applications in August 2018. Both Spelinspektionen and the industry would certainly have benefitted from more time for preparations, but on the other hand it was very important for Sweden to have a new legislation in place.

EGR Compliance: What lessons can Spelinspektionen learn from this?
CR: Spelinspektionen didn’t get any additional resources until the Parliament decided on a new Gambling Act in June 2018. So, we didn’t have much of choice but to wait for the Parliament´s decision before we seriously could start preparing for the new gambling market. What we learned from this is the importance to stay focused and take one step at the time. First things first.

EGR Compliance: What timescale would have been sufficient to create an effective market?
CR: In my opinion, to create an effective market very much depend on the design of the regulation in question, rather than the timescale for implementation. The willingness of the operators to comply with the legislation is also of great importance. But of course we would have preferred to have more time for our preparations, twice the time had been much better for us and the industry.

EGR Compliance: Do you believe that too much emphasis was placed on the licensing of operators and not enough on the spelpaus.se self-exclusion regime?
CR: Spelpaus.se was up and running on 1 January 2019 as planned. Spelinspektionen hasn´t had any technical issues with the system, it has been working well so far. Some operators have, however, not signed up for the system in time or have had technical issues with their own systems. So, I don´t think it´s fair to say that we have placed too much emphasis on the licensing in comparison with Spelpaus. More than 21,000 Swedes have already (as of 11 February 2019) signed up for Spelpaus. We didn’t really know what to expect but we think the number is quite extraordinary considering we have not yet marketed the programme to any greater extent.

EGR Compliance: Almost 30 companies are still waiting for their licences to be issued, as a regulator are you happy with these delays?
CR: I’m quite happy with the number of applications that Spelinspektionen was able to process before launch in January 2019. The goal was never to issue a licence to all operators. We had to consider the quality of the application and when it was handed in. Handling licence applications takes time; as of today 69 operators have been licensed.  Many of them have been granted licences for both online and betting. The companies that are still waiting for their licences handed in their applications during the late fall 2018 or in 2019 and the applications were in many cases not complete.

Most operators are eager to provide additional information in order to get their licences. But we have also learned that it sometimes can be difficult for the operators to get hold of information depending on the regulation in the country in question when it comes to various certificates for instance. In some cases, we don’t get the additional information asked for due to misunderstandings or lack of interest to get licensed quickly.

EGR Compliance: What has the response been to the new licensing and regulatory procedures by operators already present in the Swedish market?
CR: We have had a lot of positive response on the licensing process and regulatory procedures from the operators so far, obviously from the operators that now have received a licence. During the licensing process we had many requests for meetings with the operators, but due to lack of time we could not meet their request. We have also received some criticism from the industry for lack of interpretations when it comes to certain definitions and provisions of the law. Of course, the industry has also been under a lot of pressure to get everything in place in time.

Considering the short time frame everyone must understand that it will not be perfect on day one. There is therefore an ongoing (2019-2021) evaluation of the new regulation by the Swedish Agency for Public Management. Spelinspektionen and several other stakeholders will provide the evaluation with information on what is, and more importantly what is not, working well in the new gambling market.

EGR Compliance: Do you think the Swedish market will suffer in the long term from the delays in licensing and issues with Spelpaus? 

CR: In my opinion there is no delay in licensing in the sense, if any, that the Swedish market will suffer in the long term. And as I mentioned earlier Spelpaus.se was up and running as planned on 1 January 2019 and has been working well so far without any technical issues on our side. When it comes to channelisation our initial estimates show that more than 90% of the online gambling is channelised under the new licensing regime. This is in line with the channelisation goal although we still await the final figures.
I have previously worked at the Swedish Energi Agency for some years. Since the energy market in Sweden has been re-regulated some years ago as well, I have learned that it takes time to get a re-regulated market in place.