Lotto Direct hit with Swedish fine over unlicensed gaming breaches
Regulator issues SEK15,000 penalty to Malta-based operator over “deliberate” violations of Swedish law
The Swedish Gambling Authority (SGA) has taken action against Lotto Direct Limited with a warning and fine of SEK15,000 (£1,255) for operating unlicensed online gaming in Sweden.Delivering its assessment, the SGA said the firm had “deliberately” offered games not covered by its Swedish licence between August 2020 and May 2021.Lotto Direct received a Swedish licence in June 2020 and applied to register the lotto.se website with the SGA in August.The addition of a domain name to an existing Swedish licence requires the payment of a SEK150,000 application fee to the SGA, although the company said it had included thelotter.se domain name in its original licence application.The SGA rejected this appeal in September 2020, leading Lotto Direct to launch a legal challenge in the Swedish courts.However, this challenge was also dismissed by the Swedish administrative court in October 2020.Lotto Direct then launched a final challenge in the Swedish Court of Appeal which was also dismissed by judges in February 2021, with the ruling coming into effect in April 2021.The SGA said that no application fee was paid by Lotto Direct throughout the period.After the ruling came into effect, the SGA asked Lotto Direct to clarify whether the company offered online games on the domain thelotter.se.Later, in April, the firm applied to amend its licence again to operate games on thelotter.se website instead of thelotter.com.In May, the SGA received confirmation that the company had offered games on the .se domain throughout the appeal period and amended its licence to include thelotter.se domain.“Lotto Direct Limited has at least since 24 August 2020 been aware that thelotter.se was not covered by the company’s Swedish license, but it nevertheless chose to offer games on the website until 25 May 2021,” the SGA wrote.“It is thus about a deliberate infringement over a long period of time in this context.“Against the stated background, the SGA considers that the violation should be considered serious,” the regulator added.Acknowledging measures taken by the firm to reduce the level of infringement, the SGA said a warning and fine of SEK15,000 were a sufficient punishment.