Svenska Spel "dumbfounded" by advertising report
Swedish monopoly calls for more constructive dialogue with regulator after report criticises marketing efforts
Svenska Spel has said it is “dumbfounded” by a report published by the Swedish Gambling Authority into its advertising efforts and has called for more dialogue with the regulator.
The Lotteriinspektionen published a report last week which investigated 121 pieces of Svenska Spel marketing and found more than 60% of them to have “clearly violated” new marketing conditions published last year.
Speaking to eGaming Review this morning, Svenska Spel spokesperson Johan Tisell challenged some of the findings of the report and said it had been difficult to receive clarification from the Authority on some of the restrictions.
“We’ve had a dialogue with the Authority for more than a year about how some of the wording of the permits should be applied, and we’ve found it quite difficult to get precise feedback.
“Some of the units that in the report have been found not to comply with the licence have actually been presented to the Authority before being used with no feedback, remarks or criticism at the time,” he said.
“To give another example, the licence states we should use particular caution when marketing jackpots, but what does particular caution actually mean? The report still offers no clarification, but rather deems all marketing of jackpots as ‘relatively questionable’.
“Are we compliant or are we not? If there are any grey areas, it’s important to know the Gambling Authority’s view, so that we can act accordingly,” he added.
New conditions issued in August this year also clarified remarks made in the report in relation to linking from online banners, which Svenska Spel has claimed to prove its own interpretation of the restriction to be correct.
The Swedish monopoly has also questioned the timing of the report, arguing that while the initial audit was carried out in July it did not receive the new marketing restrictions until 1 July, allowing little time to implement the new restrictions.
And while the audit was issued in August and later sent to the Swedish Ministry of Finance, Svenska Spel has questioned while it was not made aware of its existence until last week.
“I’m sure we can sort this out, but it’s important for us to have this dialogue with the Gambling Authority,” the spokesperson added.
Joakim Rönngren spokesperson for the Authority meanwhile backed the report and told eGR that marketing efforts violating licensing conditions has decreased since the audit was conducted.
“We are convinced that our supervision is bearing fruit and the situation is different today,” he said.