Swedish regulator issues nine more supplier licences

The regulator issued the approvals in anticipation of 1 July, when having such a licence is to become mandatory for all suppliers looking to offer their services to operators in the Swedish regulated market. The new gaming software licences – which have a five-year term – were awarded to a mixture of well and lesser known businesses.

Spelinspektionen awarded licences to igaming providers Arland Gesellschaft für Informationstechnologie mbH, as well as Everymatrix Software. Hacksaw received a licence – as did two of its subsidiaries, Hacksaw Operations and Hacksaw Studios.

Fellow games providers Yggdrasil, Relax Gaming and Thunderkick also all received licences, with the latter receiving two – for the Swedish and Malta branches of the business.

These authorisations are in addition to the three that were awarded earlier in the month to Synot Games, Skill on Net and Norrköping AB.

Channelisation hopes

Spilinspektion have said that 60 applications for licences have been received since the submission process opened on 1 March this year. Under the rules, an application fee for a B2B supplier licence costs SEK120,000.

The purpose of introducing B2B licensing requirements is to attempt to channel consumers into the regulated sector by depriving illegal operators of their technology providers. While domestic industry has not been necessarily opposed to the measures, there have been some doubts as to whether the imposition will have a large effect on channelisation.

“I perceive that there is a generally positive attitude towards B2B permits from both the industry and Spelinspektionen,” Gustaf Hoffstedt, secretary-general of Swedish trade association Branscheförenigen för Onlinespel (BOS) said in December.

“Possibly there is a deviating picture of expectations in that we on the part of the industry have lower expectations that this will really be able to block the larger outflows from the Swedish licensing system.”