-
Casinos for you
Kindred Group Hit With Record €9 Million Fine By Swedish Gaming Authority
By Shane Addinall Mar 19, 2020 IndustrySpelinspektionen hands out record-breaking €9 million penalty for bonus and game offerings that violated the terms of Spooniker Ltd licence agreement. However, Kindred Group CEO Henrik Tjärnström is determined to fight the fine in court.Swedish gambling regulator Spelinspektionen (SGA) found that Spooniker Ltd repeatedly transgressed the terms of their gambling licence as recently as June 2019 when the last checks were made.
The Kindred Group subsidiary received a record-breaking SEK 100 million fine from the regulator but was allowed to remain in operation due to them having taken steps to correct the errors for which they were fined.
Crossing The Line
In order to offer a safe and secure gambling environment for their players, the Swedish Gaming Authority has implemented a series of specific rules and regulation by which all licence holders are required to abide.
In particular, it was found that Spooniker – who operates sites such as Maria casino, Unibet casino and StorSpelare casino – was offering unauthorised casino bonuses and games not allowed by their licence.
Swedish licenced casinos are only allowed to offer new deposit bonuses, while Spooniker was offering a series of ongoing incentives which includes Free Spins, free bingo cards and various loyalty program rewards across their product suite.
They were also found to be offering players access to lottery-type games which are not included in their licensing agreement as lottery games fall under the purview of Svenska Spel.
Not Going Gently
Rather taking their lumps and moving on Kindred Group has stated that they have adopted a stricter interpretation of the Swedish gambling laws in order to stay in the Gaming Authority’s good graces but will be appealing the fine.
Henrik Tjärnström, CEO of Kindred Group, said:
“We will, of course, appeal the SGA’s decision, and it is imperative to stress that the SGA’s decision does not become legally enforceable until the appeal process has been exhausted, and a final judicial decision has been issued. Only then will the sanction fee become payable and Kindred will, of course, comply with any final decision in due course.”
Tjärnström maintains that while they support Sweden’s desire to create a safe online gambling domain for their citizens, they feel the fine and warning as unwarranted. They claim that they have been calling for clarity on this issue from the Gaming Authority since 2018 and that they responded to the Authority’s concerns as soon as they were notified of them.
In The Courts Hands
Only time will tell which way the courts will rule in this instance, which by itself is one of Tjärnström’s frustrations:
“SGA has not managed to clarify the law and instead left it to the Swedish courts to determine the issues that have arisen as a result of the SGA’s actions to issue warnings and sanction fees to licensed operators, while at the same time doing little to stop unlicensed operators from targeting Swedish customers.”
In other regulated markets, the gambling oversight commission is responsible for clarifying their rules and then enforcing them. Kindred’s CEO feels as though the SGA is happy to keep operators in the dark as it lends itself to revenue generation through ongoing penalties and fines.
In This Article
You might also like