Sweden’s Gambling Results Put Svenska Spel Ahead

Sweden’s gambling market has continued to do well. Not surprisingly, Svenska Spel, the state-owned operator, has managed to outpace the competition in the first two months since gambling has been legal in the country.

Svenska Spel Beats Gambling Operators in Sweden

The state-owned Svenska Spel has managed to post better results than any other operator in Sweden in the first two months of legal online gambling.

The company cited SEK 906 million over the period, roughly $98 million in turnover. There have been some restrictions put in place already, but nothing that has curbed the interest in gambling or the industry’s ability to turn a steady profit.

Svenska Spel had no trouble completely dominating he market, controlling 85% of the total turnover, which has been mostly associated with the high level of trust the state-owned company enjoys.

The Spelinspektionen, the country’s new regulator, has been less stringent on Svenska Spel as there have been no issues so far, unlike with some private-owned gambling operators. Sweden has exploded in terms of overall operators this year. Before the industry became legal on January 1, 2019, there were around 30 licenses submitted.

Since January, though, the total number of licenses has grown to 70, an impressive number for a fairly small market, such as Sweden. The AB Trav och Galopp (ATG) has also joined the gambling race, managing to notch up a steadfast overall turnover of SEK 667 million.

Private Operators in Sweden Having a Good Time

Even though the highest trust was naturally voted to the state-owned companies, there has been no small amount of successful privately-held companies, most notably the Kindred Group. The company’s Spooniker has managed to achieve SEK 247 million in terms of revenue, the highest among private companies.

Another big brand in the country, bet365, has managed to successfully clinch SEK 117 million in turnover. There have been successful private companies as well. More interestingly though, the first 10 companies have managed to amass around SEK 2.5 billion in the first two months of 2019.

To put the numbers in perspective, the entire gambling action in Sweden in 2018 was worth SEK 5 billion. Despite a drop in the overall number in gamers, the Swedish market has grown beyond initial forecast which predicted over-saturation even at 40 operators.

Amid a rapid expansion, many companies have been coloring around the lines, promoting the Spelinspektionen to issue final warnings to operators that have been using offensive advertisement styles in light of growing incidence of addiction. However, Sweden still fails to define what a “moderate marketing effort” is when it comes to gambling.

When the industry was preparing to launch in December, the TV was filled with multiple brief casino ads that dominated every emission.