The Swedish gambling regulator has pointed out the “lack of analysis” into the impact on public lotteries it says is a feature of a government memorandum about a credit card gambling ban.
Plans for banning the use of credit cards in all forms of gambling were revealed earlier this year and are due to come into force from April next year.
But while the Swedish Gambling Authority said it “endorses” the framework, it pointed out a potential sticking point with the memorandum’s ruling that some public benefit associations that sell bingo games or lotteries do not accept payments via bank cards and are therefore not affected by the credit card ban.
Regulator Spelinspektionen said in response: “Public benefit lotteries also sell tickets through digital sales channels, which means they must ensure that payment is not made with credit cards or financed through credit provided by a third party at the time of purchase.
“The memorandum lacks an analysis regarding the potential consequences this situation may have for public benefit lotteries.”
Another “potential ambiguity” of the memorandum, the regulator said, is around the proposal for an extended credit ban, which means that a player cannot pay for gambling stakes with account credits.
“By definition, a credit linked to a bank account is also considered an account credit,” Spelinspektionen said.
“The Gambling Authority wants to point out that this could be interpreted as requiring licence holders and gambling agents to ensure that credit limits are not used when making payments with debit cards.
“Given that the proposal does not impose an investigation duty on licence holders and gambling agents, the Gambling Authority does not interpret the proposal as so far-reaching that the payment receiver must check, for each purchase, whether a debit card has a credit limit.”
Overall, however, the regulator said the memorandum “aligns” with the proposal it submitted and is therefore “positive” about the proposal.
