Swedish Court Rejects Operators’ Request to Have Fines Revoked

The Swedish Supreme Administrative Court has denied several operators’ appeals against decisions by the Spelinspektionen, the local gambling regulator. As a result, the violators will have to pay the fees outlined in their penalty orders.

The Spelinspektionen’s penalties were issued against subsidiaries of the gaming companies ComeOn Group, Kindred Group, and Mr Green.

ComeOn Group’s Appeal Was Rejected

As announced by the Spelinspektionen, the Supreme Administrative Court upheld penalties against ComeOn Group and four of its brands, namely Casinostugan, ComeOn Sweden, Hajper and Snabbare. The penalties were handed to the group in 2021 and totaled $15 million.

The Court of Appeal eventually agreed to reduce the four brands’ penalties. ComeOn Sweden will thus have to pay $1.2 million. Casinostugan, Hajper and Snabbare, on the other hand, will have to pay $730K, $2.2 million, and $1.3 million respectively.

The penalties were imposed because of responsible gambling failures and unauthorized bonuses.

Kindred Will Have to Pay Its Fine after Several Years of Appeals

In the meantime, the Supreme Administrative Court also upheld penalties against Kindred. The latter has long sought to avoid the fine against its Spooniker brand, which was slammed with a $9.1 million fine in 2020. The penalty was handed to the operator because the Spelinspektionen had determined that it had violated the Swedish Gambling Act with its earlier promotions. For context, Swedish law prohibits operators from offering sign-up bonuses to their customers.

While Kindred argued that the feature didn’t really constitute a promotion but was rather an in-game mechanic, it seems that the Supreme Administrative Court was not convinced.

Luckily for Kindred, however, the original fine was reduced two times, once by the Administrative Court in Jönköping and a second time by the Court of Appeal. In the end, Kindred will have to $2.74 million, which is less than a third of the original fine.

Mr Green’s Appeal Was Likewise Rejected

Finally, Mr Green received a similar treatment. The company, which was given $2.87 million in fines in 2021, was accused of committing responsible gambling and AML-related violations.

The company sought the Court of Appeal, which reduced the two fines to a total of $1.2 million. Like the other two gaming groups, Mr Green hoped to overturn the decision completely, only to have its appeal rejected by the Supreme Administrative Court.

In other news, Sweden just took a stance against match-fixing by becoming the latest country to ratify the Macolin Convention. This highlighted the country’s commitment to upholding the integrity of sports competitions.