The Swedish Gaming Inspectorate has announced a new strategy against illegal gaming activities.

It has concluded the best way to combat the illegal gaming business is to encourage a form of self-regulation of the market, in which other entities in the market act to keep illegal actors out.

This means ensuring that subcontractors and payment service providers do not cooperate with illegal gaming companies. This approach is necessary because, as the Gaming Inspectorate itself admits, its opportunities to act directly are limited and will mainly focus on cooperation with other actors in Swedish and foreign authorities.

The Gaming Inspectorate does, however, have the opportunity to apply to the Administrative Court for the ability to block specific bank accounts.

A prerequisite for the goals of the new gaming regulation to be achieved is that those who conduct gaming operations in Sweden have a Swedish license “, states the Gaming Inspectorate in a press release sent out regarding the new strategy.

However, most of the illegal gaming activities over the Internet have their headquarters in countries outside Sweden and even outside the EU, which presents special challenges for Swedish authorities.

Providing illegal gambling or gambling without the necessary license is a crime in Sweden, as is the promotion of such activities. In this part, the Gaming Inspectorate needs to cooperate with police and prosecutors, along with other authorities such as The Consumer Agency and the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority.

Multi-tenant B2B sports betting software provider Metric Gaming has secured a Class 4 license from the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA).

The Las Vegas and London-based company can now provide its products and services to the many potential customers operating from the Mediterranean online gambling hub.

Commenting on the news Metric Gaming’s CEO, Martin de Knijff, said:

“Securing this licence from the MGA is an important step in Metric’s evolution from a start-up to becoming the disruptors-in-chief of an industry ripe for disruption.

“We have been thrilled by the market’s reaction to our multi-tenant Sportsbook proposition, particularly from Malta-based operators. In the coming days we will announce the first Malta-based Sportsbook brands that will be launched using our Modulus platform over the next few weeks.

“We’ve spent the last three years and significant capital developing an organization and product proposition capable of solving the biggest challenges facing the B2B sector of our industry. We are excited to be showcasing the modern capabilities of our multi-tenant platform and each customer will benefit from near total product autonomy from the rest.

“We are confident this unrivalled degree of customisation paired with our superior sports betting products and features will deliver real leapfrog ability for our customers over their rivals.”

Metric Gaming is also licensed and regulated by the UK Gambling Commission.

Staying with Metric, two weeks ago AYO.NEWS reported the company had partnered with oddsmaker Sports IQ to build and launch a full suite of next generation US sports betting products (read more).

The Norwegian gambling regulator, Lotteritilsynet, has confirmed amendments to the unlicensed operator payments ban will be in effect from 1^st January 2020.

Though there has technically been a ban on payments to unlicensed gambling operators since 2010, it is estimated that around NOK6bn ($659.9m) is still being spent with offshore operators, so Lotteritilsynet has requested sweeping new powers.

The new amendments will give the regulator the power to request transactions are blocked based on company names and account numbers, and also cover payment intermediaries.

Discussing the new powers Lotteritilsynet lawyer and advisor, Gram Skår, explained:

“The foundation of the Norwegian gambling model is to help protect vulnerable groups from becoming gambling addicts. Good public control of gambling offsets both crime and gambling addiction. We see the effect of work we are doing today, but the purpose of the changes is to make the payment service ban more effective. This means we can, to a greater extent, prevent gaming companies from accepting deposits from Norwegian players.”

The regulator estimates around 250,000 Norwegians currently gamble with unlicensed offshore operators.

AYO.NEWS says:

If this payment ban is effective it is bound to sting quite a few operators and affiliates who’ve grown used to relatively high spending Norwegian players.

Coupled with the strict new regime in Sweden, it seems the Nordic countries are becoming decidedly less appealing to gambling operators – many of whom are looking across the Atlantic to North and South America, as well as emerging markets in Africa and Asia, for future growth.  

Just last week we looked at the state of the Norwegian gambling market – see GAMBLING IN NORWAY – A MONOPOLY OR FREE MARKET?

AYO.NEWS says features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited.

Swedish media is reporting that Zimpler has accused Trustly of abusing its position in the gaming market in Sweden, and has reported it to the Competition Authority.

According to Di Digital, Zimpler has informed the Swedish Competition Authority that Trustly has locked gaming companies into exclusive and expensive agreements, preventing them from adopting other services.

Because of this, Zimpler believes that Trustly is stopping them from doing business with gaming companies with Swedish gaming licenses. Zimpler claims to have obtained evidence of the strategy through conversations with several gaming companies.

Zimpler have been struggling to get new gaming companies in their portfolio since they launched their service back in 2017. The company says that it now believes operators in Sweden are not signing contracts with them out of fear they will lose their relationship with Trustly.

In early 2019, Trustly bought the company Entercash, which also had a similar service, and gained an even larger market share.

Responding to the Swedish Competition Authority, Trustly asserted that Zimpler’s picture of the competitive situation is incorrect. The company believes that it is not possible to look solely at the part of the company that deals with payments from company accounts to private accounts, as it is only a minor part of Trustly’s total operations.

Trustly say that they do have exclusivity agreements with gaming companies who use the Pay N Play service, but that this is a limited number.

Last year, Trustly Group had sales of close to SEK 900 million and made a profit of SEK 447 million, with over 85% of the Swedish market. Zimpler had a turnover of SEK 39 million in the same year and posted losses of SEK 677,000.

Swedish betting and gaming operator ATG has been warned by Swedish Gaming Inspectorate (Spelinspektionen) for allowing betting on two unregistered horseracing courses.

In the letter to the Gaming Authority, ATG states that it was a failure due to a human factor. Luckily for ATG, though the penalty could have been a revoked license, it was just a slap on the wrist this time.

On the 4th of July ATG sent in a letter to Spelinspektionen to inform that gambling has been allowed on horse tracks that had not been registered with Spelinspektionen. The breaches related to the horse track Tingsryd the 12th and 31st of May and Ovikens horse track (ovalla) on the 22nd June this year.

Commenting on the incident, Spelinspektionen said:

“ATG has stated that they take a serious look at what has happened and that they have now reviewed the procedure for registering agents and have taken measures to ensure that games through agents are provided only when registration has been granted by the Gaming Inspectorate.

“ATG has also reported its wrongdoing to the Gaming Inspection itself. In addition, the violation took place for a limited time. In a joint assessment, the Gaming Inspectorate therefore considers that the intervention may stay on a warning.”

In response, ATG’s Hans Lord Skarplöth said:

“We humbly respect the decision. We made a mistake and reported it to the Gaming Inspection. Now we have changed the routines to prevent it from happening again. We were wrong.”

AYO.NEWS says:

Yet again you may ask yourself if the Swedish Gaming Inspectorate have double standards when responding to violations against the Swedish license. It seems that the old Swedish monopoly ATG and Svenska Spel get away with much more than other operators (see SWEDISH REGULATOR’S DOUBLE STANDARDS? NO ACTION AGAINST STATE-OWNED SVENSKA SPEL).

AYO.NEWS says features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited.

Eran Eyal, founder and former CEO of Shopin, has been convicted of orchestrating a fraudulent ICO after pleading guilty to charges in New York.

Yesterday we reported that the United States Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) had charged Eran Eyal, founder and former CEO of Shopin, with running a fraudulent $42m initial coin offering (read more). Today he stands convicted.

Eyal also pleaded guilty to, and was convicted of, two counts of Scheme to Defraud in the First Degree, a Class E felony, related to his two previous companies; Springleap, Inc, and Pass Sync, Inc.

New York Attorney General (NYAG) Letitia James announced the conviction after Eyal pleaded guilty to the felony charges. Regarding the case, James said:

“My office won’t allow white collar criminals to get away with their schemes to defraud innocent victims, no matter how complex.

“This one individual created company after company after company just to continue cheating investors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Using fake product trials and nonexistent contracts with major retailers he was able to lure victims to invest in his technology schemes, including his very own cryptocurrency. We will use every available resource at our disposal to pursue all who attempt to abuse and manipulate the system, because no one is above the law.”

Despite the serious nature of his offences, and the determined words of the New York Attorney General, it looks like Eyal has escaped jail time. Instead, he has been ordered to pay $125,000 in restitution and $475,000 in judgments to investors. He must also surrender the $450,000 worth of crypto remaining to the NYAG’s office.

Unsurprisingly, Eyal has also been forced to step-down as CEO of Shopin and is prohibited from raising capital or serving as a business officer in the state of New York for three years.

AYO.NEWS says:

Well, that was quick! Given the scale of Eyal’s crimes, and his track record, it is perhaps surprising that he’s not looking at a serious jail sentence. Despite his three-year ban in New York, something tells us we’ll be seeing Eyal back in business, somewhere, sometime real soon…

AYO.NEWS says features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited.