The Swedish Online Gambling Trade Organization (BOS) is strongly encouraging the Swedish government to reevaluate the schedule for removing temporary limitations on internet casinos. They have officially requested that the new rules, initially planned to be enacted on November 14th, be put into effect sooner, on September 29th.
This plea follows a government declaration on September 7th stating that all pandemic-related constraints would be lifted as of September 29th. The BOS contends that the limitations on internet casinos should also be removed on that date for the purpose of uniformity.
Gustaf Hoffstedt, the General Secretary of BOS, highlighted that the government’s main justification for implementing the restrictions was a worry that heightened time spent at home during the pandemic would result in a rise in compulsive gambling.
“Nevertheless,” Hoffstedt asserts, “this has not been shown to be true.” He stresses that since the Swedish Public Health Agency is also retracting its suggestion to work remotely on September 29th, the government should synchronize its policies and remove the temporary limitations on internet casinos on the same day.
The BOS maintains that there is no data to imply that compulsive gambling connected to internet casinos escalated during the pandemic. Their studies show that while there was a minor increase in the number of individuals participating in internet gambling during the early phases of the pandemic, the typical sum of money gambled actually declined.
As the Swedish government seeks to normalize and restore normalcy, BOS has formally requested that they eliminate the provisional limitations on the gaming sector concurrently with the termination of all pandemic regulations on September 29th.