Sweden seems to have the intention to change the pandemic online casino strategy. However, the government is set to revise its land-based gambling strategy.
The regulatory authority, Spelinspektionen said that restaurant casinos and other alcoholic places featuring slot machines will have to halt gambling activity after 10 PM. The new rules started in February and as it seems now, that it would continue till February 2021.
The government ordered a halt in the sale of alcohol between 10 PM to 11 AM each day to arrest the growth of COVID19. Also, the people gathering in public shrunk from 50 to just 8.
Sweden finally bucked the global pattern of strict lockdowns. Sweden previously attempted ‘herd immunity’. However, the country’s number is nearing 210K. The deaths have jumped to over 6400.
Prime Minister Stevan Lofven issue instructed that people should refrain from doing something which is not necessarily needed to be done.
The government seems to be in line to extend the ‘temporary’ online casino deposit and bonus limits till June 2021. The original date was the end of the year.
Branschföreningen för Onlinespel (BOS), the online gambling trade group, previously seemed frustrated with the previous promise. BOS then released a full response to the Ministry’s decision to extend it.
BOS played down the temporary extension and said that they are not addressing something ‘still has not occurred’. The BOS said that there is a double-dight surge in the betting on horseraces with State-run ATG. BOS said that the government is ignoring this.
The BOS further noted that high-rolling casino players have extended their actions on multiple sites including not holding Swedish licenses. This was to be done to tackle the weekly deposit SEK5K.
The BOS claimed that government is oblivion of what citizens are doing online. The BOS said that the original intention of protecting the customers through the prevention of excessive gambling.
As per the BOS, the Swedish authority did not update the statistics of the rate of channeling to other domestic gambling sites. In April it was estimated to be 72% which was lesser than the government’s plan of 90%.
The BOS also claimed that Spelpaus or the self-exclusion registry was not providing adequate results. The agency said that there are 70% of patients are registered. However, BOS claimed that unless the international sites are tackled, the consumers would continue to suffer.
The only way forward for the BOS is to appeal to the government from taking further repressive actions against the gaming companies in Sweden. It also claimed that the government must find ways to crack the whip on not locally licensed gambling sites.
Source: https://calvinayre.com/2020/11/23/business/sweden-limits-land-based-gambling-online-curbs-slammed/