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Online Gambling Monopoly Cannot Expand |
The Swedish online casino gambling monopoly is severely questioned recently, and surprisingly to many, the Swedish government itself encouraged Svenska Spel to look into the effects of internet gambling over the next several months rather than focusing on expansion plans. The Swedish government supports the gambling monopoly, yet recently vetoed the company’s request for online casinos poker expansion in partnership with Boss Media. Instead, the government suggests that Svenska Spel focus inwardly until its license comes up for renewal in June 2008.
Boss Media provides online casino poker software for many of the prominent internet poker sites in the gambling industry. Recently, Svenska Spel and Boss Media asked the Swedish government for approval on a planned partnership that would export online casino poker services to another country. But instead of the approval that many anticipated, the Swedish government stressed that Svenska Spel is itself in a precarious position because of the pressure from the European Commission to open up the Swedish online casinos gambling monopoly to outside gambling companies.
Svenska Spel has reported stellar profits this year, $US 215 million. This figure is up from the same three quarters in 2006 and indicate a significant increase in online casino gambling in the country. Part of the justification for a state-run internet gambling monopoly lies in the fact that the government claims that it can better recognize and prevent problem gambling.
But beyond that justification, the European Commission has noted that because Sweden enjoys the benefits of belonging to the European Economic Area, the country is not fairly allowing outside companies a share of the Swedish online casino gambling market. The Commission is having similar problems with the French monopoly on online casinos gambling. |
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