bet365 has failed in its appeal regarding warnings and penalty fees levied against its betting and gaming operations in Sweden.
The Court of Appeal agreed with Spelinspektionen, Sweden’s gambling regulator, regarding alleged ‘serious violations’ of duty of care and deposit limit rules, affirming penalties of SEK 40m (approximately £3m) and SEK 4m (approximately £302,000) against Hillside (Sports) ENC and Hillside (Gaming) ENC, respectively.
Action against bet365 was first published in April 2023 following an investigation by Spelinspektionen into the operator’s interactions with customers between 17 October and 17 December 2021.
The investigation found that bet365 allowed customers to play without setting a deposit limit per day, week, or month, as required under the Swedish gambling act.
bet365 argued that the law requires a customer to set a limit, which in theory could be ‘no limit’.
However, Spelinspektionen described this interpretation as ‘shocking and indifferent to the obvious obligations of a gaming company to comply with the regulations and protect customers’.
“Deposit limits are an important gambling responsibility tool that Hillside Gaming [bet365] has given all of its customers the opportunity to opt out of for a very long time. This constitutes both a serious and systemic violation of the gambling law,” wrote Spinspektionen in 2024.
Regarding bet365’s actions toward the customers it monitored, Spelinspektionen said the operator assigned only a low-risk level, meaning it could not detect suspected problem gambling or act quickly enough.
For example, one customer has both banned himself from gambling on several occasions and had high deposit limits, but there was no evidence of intervention from bet365 between February 2019 and December 2021.
The investigation found that bet365 had further failed in its duty of care as set out by the Gambling Act, as it did not voluntarily limit customers’ gambling when their gambling patterns had not improved.
However, it noted that bet365 updated its action plan after regulator intervention and removed the ability to set no limit when prompted to choose a deposit limit.
The ruling shows that Spelispektionen found the series of violations sufficient to consider revoking bet365’s licences but instead opted for dual warnings and penalty fees.
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