Swedish trade body BOS says gambling regulator too sanction-heavy

A report commissioned by the Swedish Trade Association for Online Gambling (BOS) has concluded that Spelinspektionen, the country's gambling regulator, takes a more punitive approach to anti-money-laundering supervision than other Swedish authorities with similar remits.

The report, written by law firm Nordic Legal, was reported by iGaming Business. It compares Spelinspektionen's methods with those of the Financial Supervisory Authority (FI), the Stockholm County Administrative Board (Lst Stockholm) and the Swedish Schools Inspectorate across three areas: AML oversight, the scale of sanction fees, and assessments of owners' and senior managers' suitability.

BOS secretary general Gustaf Hoffstedt told iGaming Business that the association commissioned the work because Spelinspektionen appears to diverge from "the standards and procedures that typically characterise Swedish public authorities".

"In our view, the SGA is more heavy-handed and less focused on dialogue or collaborative problem-solving compared to other Swedish authorities," Hoffstedt said. He added that Nordic Legal acted independently in producing the report, despite being commissioned by BOS.

Hoffstedt said the licensed Swedish gambling market would benefit if Spelinspektionen adopted working methods more closely aligned with those used by other national agencies.

On supervisory method, the report found that FI and Lst Stockholm both use a system-level, risk-based approach to AML oversight, reviewing an entity's full risk assessments, procedures and controls before testing them against samples of customer files.

Spelinspektionen's AML supervision, by contrast, was described as largely sample-based and driven by individual customer cases. Nordic Legal examined 12 AML-related decisions issued since 2021 and found that 11 relied primarily on reviewing small samples of between five and 15 customer files, often without including the operator's broader risk assessment or policies in scope.

On the size of sanctions, the report measured fines against each regulator's statutory maximum to account for differing fee structures. Of nine Spelinspektionen AML decisions reviewed between 2022 and 2025, seven resulted in penalties at or above half of the legal maximum, with two reaching roughly 91% and 100%.

FI's AML sanctions in large banking cases ranged from about 20% to 27% of its maximum over the same period, while Lst Stockholm's fees were generally a smaller proportion, though with occasional higher penalties for the most serious breaches, according to the report.

The findings follow Spelinspektionen's decision earlier this month to reaffirm warnings and impose financial penalties of SEK4 million ($401,010) on the gaming arm of Hillside Group and SEK40 million on its sports betting business.

Spelinspektionen declined to comment on the Nordic Legal report when approached by iGaming Business.