Swedish Online Gamblers to Get New Legislation

With online casino playing becoming hugely popular across all of Europe it is now the turn of Sweden to begin to put new gambling legislation in place.

The confirmation of this came on a statement on the Swedish government’s official website and was issued jointly by Fredrik Reinfeldt, who is the Prime Minister, and Peter Norman, who is the Financial Markets Minister.

The government statement said that they are aware that the county needs to implement “some legislative changes” in respect of the online gambling industry. They have received some recommendations from the country’s National Office about what to do and they said that the issue will go back to Parliament in the shape of a proposal designed to put in place “a well functioning regulatory framework”.

The biggest concern for the Swedish authorities is over citizens of the country having a go on unregulated internet casino sites. They are also interested in maintaining a low number of serious punters in the country and making sure that there isn’t a problem with people operating slot machines on an illegal basis.

Not Before 2014

Part of the plan in Sweden is to avoid the current level of players with gambling problems increasing. It is believed that about 2% of Swedes have some form of gambling addiction and the new laws are expected to stop this figure from increasing too much.

The end of May is when a response is expected from Parliament and it is unlikely that any new laws would be in force before 2014 is upon us.