The Swedish government is to formally remove the country’s current restrictions on lottery provision, which it says are “outdated” and have “little practical significance” in the modern gaming market.
The current regulations state that operators with a state lottery licence can only offer lotteries which are scratch cards, number games and probability games.
The Swedish government has said that while the “vast majority of lotteries on the market today are scratch cards," there are individual lotteries that “fall outside of these categories."
It said Svenska Spel could feasibly submit a request for a regulatory amendment if it wanted to release a new type of game to the market not covered by the current regulations.
The government insisted that the re-regulation in 2019 was intended to be a “framework law” that “should depart from the previous practice where the government made decisions about the individual games that various operators could provide.”
“Against this background, the current restriction on which lotteries may be provided by an operator with a state licence appears outdated,” it said.
“A state-owned company that provides lotteries should, like public benefit organisations, be able to have freedom in developing its products without unnecessary limitations.
“The enumeration of permitted lottery types should therefore be removed. As a consequence, a company with a state licence can provide lotteries that are not bingo, online bingo, computer-simulated slot games, local pool games, or games on slot machines.”
