Gaming Market Insights Series #16: Swedish lottery industry — how long can Svenska Spel keep it spell?
Sweden is located in the North of Europe with an area of about 450,000 square kilometers. Total population hovers around 10 million people. Sweden also enjoys huge green area, with forests covering 69 per cent of the nation. Thanks to higher proportion of GDP investment in R&D than most other countries, Sweden is considered one of the world’s most technically forefront economies. Digital economy and shared economy are of paramount importance and growth potential.
Vivid economic picture
In 2015 the Swedish economy grew quickly at 2.4% growth YoY and GDP growth is expected to stay strong through 2016 at 3.1% and slow down to 2.3% in 2017. The domestic economy is underpinned by strong private consumption and investment, favored by low unemployment, positive trend in business-sector investment and household consumption and record-low interest rates.
Gambling market landscape and lottery market overview
The two main legal documents governing gambling in Sweden, are The Lotteries Act (1994) — Lotterilagen and The Casinos Act (1999) — Kasinolag.
Sweden Lottery is one of the most popular pastime games in Europe. Svenska Spel — the national lottery and gaming company in Sweden is the exclusively legitimate lottery operator in the country. Such scenario has stayed under the EU’s radar for sometime due to the concern of whether the monopolistic position of Svenska Spel is in line with European free trade virtue.
In November 2002 the Swedish Government has granted Svenska Spel exclusive right to operate sports betting and poker and ATG exclusive right to offer online horse racing. Four years later, in 2006 Svenska Spel achieved a licence to introduce online poker in partnership with the online gaming software provider Boss Media. Swedish players are not prohibited from purchasing lottery tickets abroad or through online websites of foreign lotteries.
However there has been a huge number of more than 150 unlicensed foreign online gambling operators who are now targeting the Swedish market, which represents a serious threat to the monopolies of Svenska Spel and ATG. The Swedish Gambling Authority has experienced difficulties in combating these thriving competitors.
As aforementioned, the Svenska Spel offers several lottery games, a bingo game and all sorts of scratch cards. Lotto 7/35 is a traditional jackpot, draw-style, lotto game and is the company’s flagship game. Like the majority of worldwide lottery games, in the past only Swedish residents were allowed to play any Sweden Lottery games by Svenska Spel including the Sweden Lotto. However to date, there are a number of fully authorized online lottery companies that players can choose to select their own Lotto numbers through online websites or authorized agents. Players from 18 years old of age are eligible to join the games and there are no restrictions on nationality of players.
Future outlook
Swedish lottery industry is prone to grow further provided that the law facilitates a more open and friendly ground for commercial and multi players to capture market demand. The digital economy of Sweden can fuel stronger growth of online and digital lottery in the country once the government encourages both foreign and local online companies to thrive.
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