According to Gustaf Hoffstedt, who is the CEO of Sweden’s trade body BOS, the country’s gambling market needs a hard reset. He urged the government to step back from commercial gambling and focus on regulation,
In a recent interview, Hoffstedt criticised the government’s approach to the market since Sweden legalised online casinos in 2019. He also argues that the state’s ownership of Svenska Spel creates an inherent conflict of interest.
“It is tricky that the government, in addition to proposing new laws on the gambling market and through its authority supervising the gambling market, also runs its own commercial gambling company,” Hoffstedt said.
In his words, there are no watertight partitions between the legislative and judicial powers and the state-owned company, and therefore, the government-owned gambling company will always be given positive discrimination.
That’s why Hoffstedt believes the government should sell Svenska Spel and concentrate on its regulatory responsibilities. He also called for a further overhaul of the market that would allow private competition in Sweden’s lottery sector.
He wants to see the state sell the commercial gambling operator and then focus on its unique role of policymaking and ensuring that Swedish online casinos play by the rules.
BOS Criticises Sweden’s Channelisation Approach
Hoffstedt’s concerns extend beyond Svenska Spel and centre on what he sees as Sweden’s increasingly restrictive approach to licensed gambling.
He argued that the government is attempting to tighten regulations on licensed operators while simultaneously trying to combat unregulated gambling. In his opinion, this is a strategy which is unlikely to improve the country’s channelisation rate.
“The government has not taken a single measure to increase the attractiveness of the national gambling license market during the current term of office,” he claimed.
He explained that the government is relying on the belief that it is possible to tighten the license market further as long as the state simultaneously tries to tackle the unlicensed gambling companies. This is a strategy that is doomed to fail, noted Hoffstedt.
Recently, Sweden’s channelisation rate has come under increasing scrutiny. Hoffstedt argues that policymakers need to focus more heavily on making the regulated market attractive to consumers.
According to recent data, the country’s channelisation rate hit 84% in 2025. The channelisation rate is used to determine what percentage of online gambling is occurring on regulated casinos.
One of the main reasons for the regulation of the iGaming sector was to keep consumers off offshore platforms. However, the channelisation has slowly dropped since 2024.
Still, Hoffstedt suggested that around two-thirds of political and regulatory efforts should be concentrated on reinforcing the licensed market, with the remaining third focused on tackling unlicensed operators.
Hoffstedt also criticised the government for not yet implementing its proposal to criminalise the conversion of Swedish players by unlicensed gambling operators.
Swedish Market Faces Growth Challenges
Discussions of Sweden’s casino sector arrive at a time of limited growth. Hoffstedt noted that Sweden already has one of Europe’s highest levels of online gambling penetration, with online gambling accounting for just over 68% of the market.
That means online operators can no longer rely on taking market share from land-based gambling to drive expansion, he argued.
“With such a high online penetration as Sweden’s, the time when you could gain market share at the expense of land-based gambling is largely over. If the online gambling market is to grow, the gambling market as a whole must grow, since it more or less constitutes the same market.”
Additionally, several major Swedish gambling companies have also been working on expanding their business outside of the country.
Betsson recently strengthened its Canadian presence through the acquisition of Rhino’s B2C assets, while Evolution has expanded into Alberta after its proposed acquisition of US-based Galaxy Gaming failed to materialise.
However, Hoffstedt rejected the theories that international expansion has a correlation to the lack of confidence in the Swedish market.
In his words, Swedish online gambling companies have always grown mainly abroad, and he pointed to Sweden’s former gambling monopoly and the relatively small size of the domestic market. He added that the Swedish market represents only a small portion of the activities of some major local gambling firms.
2019 Reform Still Brought Positives
Despite the criticism, Hoffstedt acknowledged that Sweden’s 2019 legalisation of the iGaming sector provided several valuable improvements.
The new system opened up the market for third-party operators, while also introducing a centralised self-exclusion system and establishing legally binding player-protection requirements.
He also discussed Finland’s planned gambling-market reform in 2027, and described it as evidence that Nordic countries can continue developing liberalised gambling systems. In his words, if Finland does similarly to Sweden and Denmark but manages to avoid Sweden’s mistakes, it will become a beacon of light in Europe in gambling regulation.
