Swedish Gaming Inspectorate launches nationwide ‘Games Need Rules’ campaign

The Swedish Gaming Inspectorate, Spelinspektionen, has announced a new nationwide campaign aimed at discouraging the use of unlicensed operators, billed as ‘Games need rules’. 

As part of the campaign, the Inspectorate will release a series of films across social media centred around the ‘games need rules’ theme, whilst also asserting that ‘it can be problematic to play with companies without a Swedish licence’.

The three films will feature humorous depictions of people playing board games whilst making up their own rules, using these situations as an allegory for the importance of gambling companies maintaining compliance with established laws. 

Additionally, the three films – featuring TV personality Anders Lundin – will link to a lengthy information film on the spelinspektionen.se website, where more details on the benefits of gambling with licenced Swedish operators. 

“The purpose is to inform the public that there is a choice to make, between gaming companies that have a Swedish license and gaming companies that do not,” said Yvonne Hejdenberg, Inspectorate Communications Manager.

“The goal is for the public to gain increased knowledge about the benefits of choosing a gaming company with a Swedish license.”

The announcement comes as the Spelinspektionen places a heightened focus on social responsibility and harm prevention, having recently updated the Spelapus.se self-exclusion website in order to improve the webpage’s user-friendliness. 

This has coincided with a campaign against unlicensed operators, with the Inspectorate taking action against 24 Curacao-registered betting and gaming businesses that had been illegally providing their services in Sweden.

As part of a wider Swedish strategy against black market operators, Spelinspektionen can directly cooperate with the Swedish Tax Agency, Finansinspektionen (FCA) and the Swedish Consumer Agency in order to strengthen its enforcement capabilities.

Developments towards the close of last year saw the three agencies collaborate on the imposition of payment injunctions and IP bans against the 24 Dutch operator’s online properties, with the last sanctioned firm being Disrupt Entertainment.