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Maltese-headquartered gaming operator The Lotter will launch its lottery ticket purchasing and lottery betting service in Sweden following the award of a licence by the Swedish Gambling Authority (SGA).
Founded in 2002, The Lotter offers punters the ability to purchase official lottery tickets from several international lotteries, with staff purchasing lottery tickets on behalf of players.
Current lotteries offered by the firm include US Powerball and Mega Millions, Spain’s El Gordo and Euromillions draws and Italy’s SuperEnalotto draw.
The firm also offers betting on lottery based games, allowing players to place bets on dozens of lotteries each week, all with unique winning odds and prize pool structures.
Headquartered in Malta, The Lotter currently operates 20 local offices worldwide and has a licence from the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA).
The Lotter said its primary aim is to increase its market share from traditional lottery operators in Sweden including current monopoly operator Svenska Spel by offering a wide variety of lotteries to Swedish players.
Speaking about the firm’s ambitions, The Lotter’s Sweden manager John Ryott said: “Lotteries account for 50% of all gaming sales in the world but 95% of all tickets are sold offline.
“So, we will take our market share by getting people who usually buy tickets in stores to see the internet as a place to buy tickets,” added Ryott.
Svenska Spel is currently the only operator authorised to offer lottery-based games in Sweden under the Swedish Gambling Act, however companies including Lottoland currently offer betting-on-lotteries under sports betting licences.
However, the Swedish monopoly operator found itself in hot water last month after Lottoland questioned claims made by the firm about the market share of lottery betting operators.
In an editorial published on 8 June, Svenska Spel CEO Patrick Hofbauer labelled lottery betting a “shadow game” and claimed it diverted money away from good causes, before calling on the Swedish government to block the vertical.
To support this, Svenska Spel cited a report from H2 Gambling Capital, which it claimed showed lottery betting firms accounted for almost 40% of the European online lottery market, generating GGR of between €1.25bn-€1.5bn in 2019.
However, questions were raised regarding this analysis, with Svenska Spel reportedly unable to provide the precise figure referenced in the H2 Gambling Capital report, later revising this claim to a lower figure of 35% of the global market, rather than the European market.