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A global pandemic has changed our lives drastically. We once woke up in a completely new reality, which was shaped by the global pandemic and the new regulations. Every single field and industry have been affected by the regulations, implemented in order to prevent the further spread of the coronavirus and keep everyone maximally safe.
Because of the regulations and the massive lockdown in every country all over the world, every gathering venue including bars, restaurants, and traditional casinos have been closed. Consequently while binging at home, people still had to find something to do, which would actually entertain them and at least somehow bring back the reality we all used to live in once.
While the pandemic has destroyed the majority of businesses, it has also contributed to the development of online industries, such as online gambling. The number of customers for online gambling has almost doubled, which means that more and more people are interested in online games. While gambling operators are very happy about this consequence, the local authorities had a different approach to the topic.
The increased number of online casino users encouraged governmental authorities to restrict online gambling laws and regulations. Some countries turned out to be especially restrictive and careful with the increased intensity of online gambling. One of the countries is Sweden.
Sweden is being very secure with the online gambling industry and its players. This is why with the increased number of players, the country’s officials decided to implement some new restrictions. According to some existing statistics, the whole Scandinavian region is experiencing a massive increase in online gambling. So far, the worst and the most limiting restrictions have been implemented by Norway. All nye casinoer, which in translation to English means “new casinos”, are only allowed to accept a certain amount of deposits and bets. The monthly loss limits are also strictly regulated.
Sweden introduced a new limitation
Sweden’s online casino deposit limits have resulted in penalties against some of the local gambling as well as betting operators. The reason for that can be considered breaching the permanent restrictions, yet the misconceptions as well. Information regarding the changes was introduced back at the beginning of December.
Sweden’s local gambling regulatory authority, Spelinspektionen announced that certain operators are getting fined for allowing customers exceeding the limits imposed on deposits back in July of this year. The deposit limit of SEK5K, which is around $600 was implemented due to the increased number of gamblers and thus problem gambling cases as well.
What makes everything worse, is the fact that the regulator mentioned that the gambling operators have not done it once or twice, but repeatedly throughout this whole period. Swedish online licenses require the player to set personal deposit limits for sports betting and anyone who sets their deposit limit above the states SEK5K is supposed to be restricted to betting sports games only.
Besides exceeding limits on the deposits, some operators in Sweden allowed the players to not only bet on sports but use the deposits for online casino gambling activities, such as slots and card games. Everything this resulted in fines. One of the biggest gambling operators in Sweden which was also noticed in allowing players to use the deposits on online casino games instead of sports betting. Thus, the company claimed that around 100 players in total were seen breaching the law. According to Spelinspektionen, the company has even suspended around five players for illegal actions. This is only proof that even the most advanced technologies are needed to be checked.
The action of interaction
Once all of the operators who were noticed in breaching the regulations were claimed guilty, Spelinspektionen ordered them to fix the problem within a four week period. In case the deadline was exceeded, each company would be fined with additional SEK1m. This basically means that there is no option of failing the task. Every operator had to take a note before December 4th in order to comply with the rules set by the Spelinspektionen.
The regulator acknowledged that the new rules were sprung on operators without a great amount of time to prepare, which likely accounts for its willingness to defer the financial penalties unless the operators amend their evil ways. Spelinspektionen knew that implementing new regulations would be hard to comply with the local operators. Even before imposing them, most of the representatives were unsure whether this system would work or not. This needed the system adjustment, which is not an easy process, and especially during the tiring times of pandemic, this would have been quite a hard thing to accomplish.
The limits had to be in place only until the end of the year, though in the first half of December, Sweden’s Ministry of Finance took a decision to exceed the temporary limit until July 2021. This was another unpleasant news for the operators, who had even previously had struggles with complying with the new regulations. Though, as the government notices, these measures are necessary for being especially precautionary during the period of a pandemic.
