Sweden Vows to Impose Stricter Marketing Gambling Regulations

8.01.2020, 12:56

Ardalan Shekarabi, the Minister of Social Security in Sweden, has issued a statement stating that Sweden is ready to publish the new “Stage II” of the state’s gambling regulations. This second phase is oriented towards managing the marketing regulations for those who already own a license for gambling. As has been specified by Shekarabi, those practising aggressive marketing to obtain customers across numerous differing media will be enforced to stop doing so.

Through the new set of regulations, the current advertising methods of Sweden’s licensed gambling industry will be under review by the Spelinkspektionen, the gambling regulatory body in Sweden. Thus, the Spelinkspektionen will have more control over what may or may not be done in marketing.

Shekarabi’s History of Dealing with the Gambling Sector

Shekarabi has a history of dealing with the gambling sector in Sweden since in 2018 when Ardalan was the Minister of Civil Affairs, he played one of the key roles in the creation of the first draft of the online gambling laws that were passed in Sweden last year. After becoming the Minister of Social Security, Shekarabi continues to serve as an advisor in the matters of drafting and implementing new gambling regulations in Sweden.

The Minister said that they are satisfied with the outcome but that there are a lot of areas where improvements can and will be made in the following months. As Shekarabi implied, the advertising sector will be under serious eye and aggressive advertising, as well as online casinos, are to be revised.

Hoffstedt Against the New Regulations

Although there has been a lot of positive feedback regarding the new gambling regulations, there have been some who oppose it. The Secretary-General of BOS, the online gambling trade body of Sweden, Gustav Hoffstedt, has strongly opposed the new Minister. Hoffstedt has recently implied that only Shekarabi believes in his new regulations and that the licensing system is losing players and not gaining them.

Still, not giving much attention to the positive or negative reactions that the new regulations provide, it is evident that what it certainly provides to the regulatory agency is an enormous increase of control. The regulatory agency will be able to immediately enforce actions on any operation if they believe that their marketing strategies are contradictory to the new regulations. However, it still isn’t clear what aggressive marketing strategies stand for in the new regulations. This fact means that the government gains more control over what they deem fit gaining control over. Hopefully, the new regulations will elaborate more on what aggressive marketing strategies are.