Norway’s gambling monopoly has been around the idea that no other entity, bar the state-owned operator, could offer gambling products.
To enforce this, the regulator – Lottstift – has launched a dedicated online tip-off hotline to ensure that any illegal operators are acted against, and with the help of consumers who report those entities to begin with.
Norway Flags Serious Issue with Reporting of Illegal Gambling Sites
What is a labor-intensive undertaking has just become more complicated, after the regulator discovered that the hotline may have been malfunctioning, possibly costing hundreds of relevant tip-offs.
According to the regulator, there has been a technical error that prevented certain submissions from being saved. The regulator was only made aware of the issue recently, but the problem could have been going on since March 2024.
Lottstift has appealed to the public and asked them to resubmit their tip-offs if they have done so in the past 15 months. The regulator also has a rough idea of how many reports may have been lost, extrapolating from its usual submissions.
According to the watchdog, as many as 500 tipoffs may no longer be available and cannot be processed by the system.
In a statement, Lottstift’s boss, Atle Hamar, had this to say: “We are concerned that we may have missed important tip-offs, and hope people will send us their tips again. We depend on tip-offs from the public, and people should have confidence that the tips they send will reach us. This is a serious mistake, and it took far too long for us to discover it. Now the error is corrected, you can send us tip-offs.”
How Important is the Mistake of Reading the Gambling Market?
Norway has already had some success in limiting the reach of the illegal gambling operators. The regulator said in April that it has seen a sharp withdrawal of such operators from the local market, but in light of the new revelations, one cannot help but wonder whether the malfunctioning reporting tool has contributed to the regulator’s optimistic outlook.
Norway remains one of the few monopolies in Europe. This means that the iGaming and sports betting industries are filtered through a single state-owned company, which has been fighting off offshore gambling operators that have introduced, on occasion, arguably better offers.
Norway, however, is not looking to switch the regulatory system any time soon, although there have been calls from local politicians to at least consider a multi-license model.