Videoslots has become the latest respected entity in the local iGaming market in Sweden to have been targeted and hit with a hefty fine by the country’s regulator, the Swedish Gambling Authority or Spelinspektionen as the watchdog is known locally.
According to the regulator, which published its decision on its official website on Tuesday, April 22, the company has failed to uphold the duty-of-care controls that are expected from a licensed entity in the market.
Videoslots faces a new fine in Sweden over alleged RG failures
To arrive at the SEK12,000,000 financial penalty (approx. $1.26m), the regulator launched an investigation in early 2024 and identified several instances in which the company had allegedly failed to enforce its full obligations.
The investigators specifically looked into the gaming sessions and histories of 12 individual customers, with five of them aged 18-24. According to the regulator, all of the examined customers showed signs of compulsive gambling, which the company failed to register.
This, the Spelinspektionen explained, was because of "systematic shortcomings" in the way the company checked for such issues and then followed up to ensure that they were resolved. According to the investigation, a person was able to place SEK4m across 28 deposits in a single day, with Videoslots’ intervention in this instance, through the use of automated messages, found to be inadequate.
However, Videoslots has fought back against the accusations and argued that the regulator was not entirely straightforward. The company also lambasted the guidelines provided by the regulator, calling them ambiguous at best.
Videoslots similarly said that it had restricted more than 1,000 accounts during the period of the regulator’s investigation, and called for a more lenient penalty, which the regulator rejected. However, Videoslots will take the case to the administrative court, where it will appeal the verdict.
Videoslots calls on the regulator to set clearer standards
Videoslots already has experience with this type of appeal, as it successfully appealed a fine of SEK9m (approx. $940,000), and reduced it to SEK4m (approx. $420,000). All the same, Videoslots continues to face operating conditions that it thinks are unfair.
The company has said that it has invested heavily in ensuring that it meets the highest possible standard of player protection but despite this, the regulator has continued to attack operators based on what the company saw as arbitrary criteria.
In a sense, Videoslots said, the regulator seems to think that any deposit over SEK100,000 monthly is problematic, despite a person’s income.
