Casinos Licensed by the Swedish Spelinspektionen

The Swedish Spelinspektionen, officially the Swedish Gambling Authority, is the regulator for any kind of gambling, lottery or betting activities in the country. The authority set up a stringent framework for domestic and foreign operators who offer their services to Swedish citizens and is known to strictly enforce it.

In January 2019, the Spelinspketionen launched its new regulated online gaming framework which requires every company wishing to operate in the country to obtain a licence and adhere to strict rules and regulations for responsible gambling, advertising, anti-money laundering and terrorism financing. The Spelinspektionen powers are anchored in various laws and amendments enacted between 1982 and today. The authority is controlled by the Ministry of Finance and its board is appointed by the government.

Within a few months or even just weeks, the regulator has already proven that it means business and that they will strictly enforce the new framework by punishing operators who do not adhere exactly to it to the proverbial ‘T’. One such case which came to some prominence in June 2019 is Ninja Casino, a popular brand in the country that was then operated by Sweden-based Global Gaming. The popularity was thanks to the Pay N Play concept that was first introduced into online gaming when Ninja Casino launched in 2016.

However, the Spelinspektionen found “serious deficiencies” in SafeEnt Ltd.’s (a Global Gaming subsidiary) responsible gambling and anti-money laundering protocols and revoked the licence in June 2019. Global Gaming has since tried in various courts to revive the brand, going as far as transferring the rights to the ninjacasino.se domain to Finnplay subsidiary Viral Interactive Ltd. All efforts to date (May 2020) have failed in reviving Ninja Casino with the Spelinspektionen taking a firm stand against reissuing the licence by stating that it is “highly inappropriate that Viral Interactive Ltd has chosen a collaboration involving two players who have committed serious violations” of Sweden’s gambling laws. The matter is making its way through the courts and only time will tell what kind of end there will be to the entire drama.

What it shows though is that the Spelinspektionen is taking its mandate to protect players and enforce the regulation seriously, which means that only the best operators will be allowed to offer their services to Swedish players. To give our members and visitors from Sweden peace of mind, we at GMBLRS decided to list only online casinos that have a licence in good standing.

List coming soon!