LeoVegas joins growing list of companies under review in Sweden
Operator highlights lack of “grace period” in Swedish self-exclusion system
LeoVegas has become the latest operator to be reviewed by the Swedish Consumer Agency (KO) following complaints from players over their advertising practices.
The Swedish operator, together with another firm, Perfect Day Media, are under investigation over claims that players who have self-excluded under the national Spelpaus.se self-exclusion platform have received marketing materials from the operators.
Speaking to EGR about the investigation, LeoVegas communications director Irena Busic said that the Spelpaus self-exclusion system sometimes took a few minutes to register a player.
Busic explained:“When the check against the Spelpaus registry is done, most operators need to run these “cleaned” lists through their own systems before they do their actual send-outs. This process takes some time, why a certain grace period is necessary.”
“This has been implemented in other regulated markets, such as UK (grace period of 48 hours) and Denmark (grace period of 24 hours). As such a grace period doesn’t exist in Sweden, these issues currently at hand for us, occur. We’re constantly trying to find ways to shorten this grace period but would prefer the SGA to look at other markets, as the one listed above, and apply the same grace period.” Busic added.
As a part of the process, operators receive a letter from KO registering the complaints made against them by consumers, with any subsequent investigation based on the operators response to that letter. LeoVegas has confirmed that it has received a letter from KO, but is still preparing its response.
Other operators currently under investigation over similar failings include 888 Sweden, Hero Gaming, Genesis Global, Cherry AB subsidiary Faster Ltd and Skill On-Net Limited.
KO recently revealed they have received over 200 complaints from players receiving marketing materials from operators despite being previously self-excluded from gambling. Swedish news outlet Dagens Media confirmed that three lawyers in the agency are working exclusively on these reviews.
Operators found to be contravening marketing practices can receive warnings, financial sanctions or even have their licences to operate egaming revoked.
Both KO and Swedish gambling regulator Spelinspektionen have been tasked by the Swedish government to investigate operator compliance with new regulations, with a full report due to be presented on 1 September.
Swedish Minister of Civil Affairs Ardalan Shekarabi recently challenged the industry to curb so-called aggressive advertising of gambling by 31 March or face tougher regulations. Shekarabi confirmed that the move to direct both agencies to investigate operators was to enable the government “to act faster if needed”.