Gambling Regulator in Denmark Continues to Fight Illegal Offering

The gambling regulator in Denmark, Spillemyndigheden, released a new report, highlighting its efforts against illegal gambling and accomplishments completed in 2023. Details regarding the new report emerged Tuesday with the gambling regulator confirming that monitoring illegal gambling offerings is a part of its ongoing priorities.

Not unexpectedly, Spillemyndigheden takes action against unlicensed gambling operators offering their services to customers in Denmark. At the same time, the regulatory watchdog said that it collaborates with globally recognizable companies to help prevent users from accessing unlicensed gambling websites in Denmark and removing illegal gambling content.

The new report discloses that in 2023, the Danish gambling regulator requested a block of access to 49 websites offering their services to customers in Denmark without a license. This result, compared to the 2022 figure marked a decrease considering that back then there were 82 blocked illegal websites. Although it seems that illegal offerings are on the rise, Spillemyndigheden said that the illegal market in Denmark is limited. This otherwise means that the increase represents a response to the effective actions of the gambling regulator.

“The Danish Gambling Authority has consistently seen that there are more websites that communicate access to illegal gambling than there are websites with gambling offers that target the Danish market without a license,“

reads the report from Spillemyndigheden

Channelization to the Legal Sector Improves

Focusing on channelization, the latest figures show an uptick in the rate for Denmark. In 2022, the country ranked 10th for channelization when compared to other European countries with its 89.20% channelization toward legal iGaming offerings.

With that in mind, the channelization toward the legal online gambling sector improved significantly last year, with Denmark taking sixth place with its 90.15% channelization rate.

Still, there’s room for improvement considering the 2023 channelization rate for the Czech Republic, Great Britain and Italy which posted rates of 97.17%, 96.70% and 94.36% respectively.

Besides blocking access to illegal gambling operators and improving channelization, the gambling regulator in Denmark highlighted efforts with recognizable companies, including Google, Facebook and Apple. This strategic part of the operator’s supervision allows it to report illegal gambling apps which can subsequently be removed from application stores. An example pointed out by Spillemyndigheden involved an application that offers illegal gambling available via Apple’s App Store. It said that this application can be reported and subsequently removed.

Broader actions of the gambling regulator include an active collaboration with the Group of European Gambling Regulators (GREF). This effort dates back to 2023 when Spillemyndigheden joined forces with the Group to cooperate and combat illegal gambling.