Swedish gambling license violates the Gambling Act , regulations or conditions issued by virtue of the Act , a sanction charge shall be imposed in the first instance . This can vary between SEK 5,000 and SEK 50 million . The sanction charge may not exceed ten per cent of the company ’ s turnover in Sweden .
It is furthermore proposed that internet service providers be required to display a warning message when a visitor attempts to play on illegal sites . The message shall inform the visitor that the game provider does not have a license in Sweden and is not under Swedish supervision .
The Inquiry does not propose the blocking of electronic communication to sites offering games that are not legal in Sweden . However , it is proposed that the blocking of payment transactions between illegal gambling companies and players should be considered . For reasons of competition , this should be introduced simultaneously by all concerned parties or payment transfer providers . The provision of payment transfers to and from unlicensed operators will be criminalized with a range of punishment from fines or imprisonment of at most six months .
A new crime classification will be introduced , the offence of cheating at gambling ( match-fixing and other types of manipulation of the outcome of a game ). The offence shall be able to be imposed with a prison sentence of at most two years . If the offence has been committed intentionally and has been conducted systematically or on a major scale or has otherwise been of a particularly dangerous nature , it is classed as gross , resulting in imprisonment of at least six months and at most six years .
Apart from these sanctions the Inquiry introduces a number of additional burdens on operators : most notable are marketing restrictions and a wide arsenal of player responsibility provisions to be complied with .
Analysis The Inquiry is rather brash when it comes to the stated financial purpose of the proposed bill and highlights that crossborder gambling companies represent a market share of approximately 23 per cent and their market share is increasing and that the fifteen online gambling companies publicly listed in Sweden represent a market value of SEK 69 billion ( SEK 11 billion in 2011 ). The Inquiry wants to bring some of these profits to the state-purse :
“ This reflects the large profits made by these companies and the market ’ s even greater expectations . Few online companies have as great profit margins as the online gambling companies . In 2016 , the net turnover of the online gambling companies un-regulated in Sweden was SEK 5.1 billion . The motive of central government to re-regulate the gambling market is to gain control over this part of the market through regulating and licensing . This involves issues regarding taxes , gambling responsibility and consumer protection .”
To ensure that a large share of these revenues end up in the state purse the Inquiry uses war rhetoric to underline the purpose of the proposed legislation :
“ The proposed re-regulation mobilizes a large part of central government ’ s combined arsenal of legal , economic and administrative measures in order to take control of the gambling market and of conditions in which the old Act has become increasingly unmodern .”
The Act is a product of political pressure to quickly produce new legislation for the purpose of transferring private profits to the state purse . This has inflated the pressure on the Inquiry . In volume the Report amounts to one of the biggest bureaucratization of a market in modern time . One could question whether this bulk of new legislation really reflects the demands of the market .
In the case of Framework laws such as the new Gambling Act , constitutional requirements of predictability and legality is neglected when timing is vital for political gains . This reflects the Governments fear of losing timing . After three dropped balls the market ’ s confidence in the politicians is at an all-time-low . If the political momentum is lost the bill is likely to fall .
The result of the Framework law might well be a discrepancy between what is considered politically necessary and , on the other hand , what is feasible in terms of available resources . The proposed vast criminalization and sanction arsenal would require that huge new resources are transferred to police , prosecutors and the courts . And without proper enforcement against unlicensed operators the licensing regime amounts to a high risk project for the licensees . Moreover , large new burdens regarding player responsibility , marketing and administrative liabilities are laid on the licensee . But the greatest risk for the operators come with the chosen legislative vehicle .
A Framework Law has to be filled out and completed through regulations by the government and the administrative authorities such as the new Gaming board ( Spelmyndigheten ), or by court practice . In the Act we find a number of indeterminate and vague objectives to be achieved , and the general principles to be respected in the enforcement of the law . These vague provisions must be filled with the standards of more tangible impact if they are to be meaningful . When you leave this wide discretion to the courts and authorities it creates legal uncertainty and sharply divergent court practice . The father of the Report , Håkan Hallsted , label this flexibility .
A prevailing fear is that the state controlled companies will use the time lapse between the publication of the Inquiry ’ s proposal and its coming into force to abuse their dominant position on the market . ATG is already trying to
22 | European Gaming Lawyer | Spring Issue | 2017