Betway Fined in Sweden for Breaking Bonus Rules
Spelinspektionen, the Swedish Gambling Inspectorate, has hit Betway with a penalty fee of SEK100,000 (roughly €9730) for breaking its rules regarding bonuses.
In June this year,Betway launched a marketing campaign that promoted a 200% deposit match bonus. The bonus was supposed to only be available to members of a small brand owned by Betway Limited. However, by accident, it was made available to all of Betway’s customers when they logged in.
The offer was claimed 53 times between 52 customers registered in the Betway database between 11am and 2:30pm on 10 June.
Betway did not send out any marketing communications to customers advertising the bonus, and the company also contacted customers to make them aware of the issue. Furthermore, Betway made Spelinspektionen aware of the problem. As a result, Spelinspektionen considered the breach as less serious and issued the relatively small fine.
The breach was in violation of chapter 14, section 9 of the Gaming Act, which states that a licensee may only offer bonuses to players when they first register and not on a continual basis.
Spelinspektionen changed its rules regarding bonuses in 2019 when Betsson’s NNG Nordic subsidiary and PlayOJO operator SkillOnNet were found to have offered players bonuses on more than one occasion.
At the time, NGG Nordic was fined SEK19 million, which was later reduced to SEK14 million after an appeal. SkillOnNet was hit with a fine of SEK14 million.
In November, the Swedish government announced the details of an inquiry to be carried out by Spelinspektionen that will be looking into the country’s gambling market after the removal of the deposit cap. A deposit cap of SEK5,000 was introduced as part of a temporary set of restrictions that were designed to reduce gambling harm during the pandemic.
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