SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Branschföreningen för Onlinespel (BOS), Sweden’s igaming trade body, has signed a ‘cooperation pact’ with ‘The Netherlands Online Gambling Association’ (NOGA) to channel responsible participation within their respective marketplaces.
Having guided licensed incumbents through Sweden’s relaunch of its reformed online gambling marketplace during 2019. BOS confirms that it will share knowledge and best practices with NOGA as the Netherlands moves to open its licensing window on 1 March 2020.
As industry representative trade bodies, BOS and NOGA will collaborate and mutually exchange information to help develop sustainable, business-friendly marketplaces, whilst ensuring the highest standards of consumer safeguards.
BOS Secretary-General Gustaf Hoffstedt stated that both trade associations shared ‘mutual standpoints’ on how European markets should harmonise individual laws to safeguard key consumer protections and standardise market requirements related to online gambling.
Hoffstedt said: “BOS and NOGA both stand for a high level of customer protection in every aspect of gambling. We also share a strong belief in the EU idea and therefore support free trade on equal terms. Protectionism and monopolism is not the way forward for the gambling industry.”
Facing a critical 2021 agenda, NOGA Managing Director Peter-Paul de Goeij welcomed BOS guidance on key issues related to consumer protections, stakeholder management and upholding channelling to licensed incumbents.
“NOGA is very pleased with this official confirmation of the collaboration. Sweden has already led the Netherlands in the regulation of the online gambling market in the past two years,” de Goeij stated.
“We can learn a lot from the experiences that BOS has gained during this period. Incidentally, the contact with BOS and other European sister organisations was already good and constructive, but with this formalisation, we hope to further boost European cooperation between sector organisations.”
