Svenska Spel has strengthened its dedication to safer gambling, expanded its gambling harm research, and made strides towards a more inclusive sports market.
These were the highlights of the state-owned operator’s fourth edition of its ‘Our Game Plan’ report, revealing the end result of its work towards sustainability and community initiatives throughout 2024.
In terms of contributing to the development of Swedish sports, Svenska Spel is the largest player on the market when it comes to sports sponsorships. Through its ‘Sports for All’ campaign, the operator ensures that each Swedish citizen is presented with equal access to sports.
“We support Swedish sports and work together with both academia and the sports movement for positive social development. Through initiatives such as Sports for All, we contribute to a more egalitarian, equal and inclusive sports movement,” Johnson highlighted.
In 2022, Svenska Spel took on the task to distribute all funds raised for sports equally between male and female opportunities. Two years in, that promise still stands, with everything out of the SEK 300m (£21.8m) contributed so far towards developing mens and womens sports being divided 50/50.
Kajsa Nylander, Head of Sustainability at Svenska Spel, concluded: “All our sponsorship must be both commercial and contribute to a better society. Our investment in Swedish sports is long-term and we earmark funds for initiatives that drive change.”
Players first
Additionally, a total of SEK 5.9m (£425k) has been allocated to various research projects just this year by Svenska Spel’s independent research council. This has brought Svenska Spel’s total amount of gambling harm prevention financing close to SEK 100m (£7.2m) over a 14-year period.
“It is an important part of our sustainability work and contributes to the entire industry being able to benefit from new evidence-based knowledge about how gambling problems can best be prevented,” Svenska Spel added.
According to the state-owned operator’s CEO, Anna Johnson, the investments made into research has significantly improved the gambling environment in Sweden – making player safety a top priority, the Swedish operator reiterated.
This has also been the driver behind Svenska Spel’s decision to include the total percentage of revenues generated by low-risk players in each of its quarterly financial reports starting this year, as a pledge towards sustainable growth.
Reporting began at the end of August, with the latest figures encompassing the period between April and June 2024.
Back then, Erik Strand, Svenska Spel Chairman, commented: “All serious gambling companies work to protect their customers and reduce the number who get into trouble.
“To increase transparency in the gambling industry, it is important to report the share of healthy revenue, a central part of responsible gambling.”
The intricacy here is that this decision came soon after Svenska Spel’s player safety mechanisms were put under question by Swedish media back in May.
News outlet Aftonbladet criticised the operator’s affordability checks, and argued that player protection practices are not on par with the standards seen in neighbouring countries, such as Norway and its local state-owned player Norsk Tipping.
Concerns were raised after Svenska Spel was hit with a massive SEK 103m ( £7.5m) fine issued earlier this year by the Swedish gambling regulator Spelinspektionen over the operator’s failures to comply with player protection duties between October and December 2021.
Naturally, some friction then occurred between the state regulator and the state operator, with Svenska Spel maintaining that Spelinspektionen’s assessment differs from the regulatory standard.
Casino Cosmopol
Going back to the “Our Game Plan” report, Svenska Spel was also quick to point out that another marker of its strengthened work towards player safety is the personal interaction of its staff with customers, particularly in its land-based venues.
Here, Stockholm-located Casino Cosmopol was given as an example, with the operator emphasising that it instructs all employees to be considerate of potential gambling harm problems that punters might be having, and trains them to recognise the accompanying signs.
This however comes on the backdrop of a series of Casino Cosmopol closures from February, driven by a continuous decline in profitability.
In the year ending December 2023, Spelinspektionen’s state casino turnover was dragged down with 11.4%, mainly caused by Svenska Spel’s Casino Cosmopol.
As a result, two casinos were closed in Gothenburg and Malmö. With just one venue still standing in Stockholm, Svenska Spel’s revenues generated by Casino Cosmopol in Q3 2024 were down 76.3% to SEK 31m.
This metric could soon remain history, however, as the Swedish government is considering the closure of the only remaining Svenska Spel land-based asset.