Swedish regulator aims to shoot down Unibet marathon deal

The Swedish Gambling Authority (Lotteriinspektionen) has attempted to pull the plug on Unibet’s sponsorship of the Stockholm Marathon claiming the deal may violate the Swedish Lottery Act.

Unibet was announced as a main sponsor of the event last week as part of a deal which included major branding opportunities for the gambling operator around the 26-mile course in the Swedish capital.

However, the regulator claimed that by exposing the brand, logo and domain name of a gambling company not licensed in the country, the Stockholm Marathon is in violation of section 38 of the Swedish Lottery Act and the organisers could face an injunction and fine.

Section 38 of the Act states that it is prohibited to promote for profit the participation in “lotteries arranged outside the country”.

Lotteriinspektionen has given the Stockholm Marathon Group until 18 April to reply to allegations after which formal proceedings will commence.

The ASICS Stockholm Marathon takes place on 31 May with nearly 22,000 runners from 92 countries set to take part.

The news comes amid increasing concerns relating to the promotion of foreign gambling operators in Sweden after a consultation was launched by the Swedish government to assess whether national legislation can be changed to prevent or forbid advertising by foreign gambling operators.

Last week Lotteriinspektionen also released new figures which showed TV advertising spend by unlicensed operators has more than doubled over the past two years accounting for 64% of all gambling-related ad revenue.

The Swedish Marathon Group and Unibet had yet to respond to requests for comment at the time of publication.