Online casino gambling has increased rapidly over the past few years in Sweden, both in terms of gamblers and in total turnover. The competition among operators for the gamblers’ casino wallet is fierce. A governmental inquiry of Swedish gambling regulations has proposed that nationally regulated actors, like Svenska Spel and ATG, should be allowed to start offering their customers play on the lucrative gambling form – something that would further spur competition.

On March 31, a governmental inquiry on gambling regulation was presented, including recommendations for a future Swedish gambling market. The commission suggests a licensing system, in which gambling operators can apply for licenses to offer certain gambling types to Swedish consumers. One suggestion is to allow Swedish licensees to offer online casino, something that would allow nationally regulated actors like Svenska Spel and ATG to offer the gambling form in the future.

Mediavision tracks Swedes’ gambling habits continuously and can conclude that online casinos attract between 200,000 and 230,000 Swedish gamblers per month. Today, nationally regulated actors are not allowed to offer the lucrative gambling type, why gamblers exclusively turn to foreign operators such as Bet365, Kindred (Unibet) and Betsson.

Among these actors, the competition is fierce. During the year’s first quarter, 27 different online casino brands ran advertisements on linear TV, accounting for every tenth commercial minute during the period. It is also two of the most frequent advertisers – Unibet och Betsson – that attract the most casino gamblers, each with approximately 50,000 monthly gamblers on average during Q1 2017. However, brands like Leovegas, Mr Green and Casumo are not far behind.

• Foreign gambling operators are already attracting hundreds of thousands of Swedes to gamble on online casinos. The turnover is also very high. However, the vast majority of Swedish gamblers still gamble with nationally regulated operators. A licence system could therefore increase the competition significantly. We already know that state-owned Svenska Spel has shown an interest to offer online casino, and it is not unlikely that other nationally regulated actors are interested as well. It is an attractive market for the operators and there is room for further growth, says Arvid Åsbrink, senior analyst at Mediavision.

Press release April 2017 – PDF