Swedish Gambling regulator goes after ASG 360 Services

• Sweden goes after ASG 360 Services over unauthorized games of chance
• A test purchase failed, but the regulator found materials in Swedish
• Sweden considers entities that make their products available in Swedish to be targeting the market

The Swedish Gambling Authority has published a new enforcement action on its website, detailing a case involving ASG 360 Services, a Curacao-based company that has been offering games of chance without a license from the watchdog, an official statement outlined.

ASG 360 Services targeted in latest regulatory move in Sweden

ASG 360 owned several websites that were named by the regulator as breaching local laws and offering products without obtaining the necessary permissions from the regulator.

Although the regulator was not able to place a test purchase as it attempted at first, it identified a case in which the local currency, the Krona, was offered a sone of the available payment options, which was a sign of intent on behalf of the operator that it has sought to target local customers, the regulator claimed.

Another issue that the Swedish Gambling Authority raised was that it had allegedly found materials translated in Swedish, another proof, the watchdog said of intent. The regulator tried to reach out to ASG 360, and particularly about GG.bet.

In a translated statement, the Swedish Gambling Authority had this to say:

"The Swedish Gambling Authority has banned ASG 360 Services Limited from providing games in Sweden without the necessary license. According to the Gambling Authority's strategy, we prioritize measures that contribute to gambling taking place with operators who have a Swedish gaming license. The Gambling Authority, therefore clarifies the grounds for our decisions to ban illegal online gambling by publishing these on our website."

All of the above indicates that Sweden is one of the markets that the company had been targeting, according to the regulator. The regulator further detailed the case and said that it was in the best interest of consumers to restrict the operator’s access and the access of its brands to the local market.

All the while, the Swedish Trade Association for Online Gambling (BOS) has recently urged for the government to close a legal loophole which deems tailoring bonuses in the local currency to not be "illegal" specifically, although the activity is banned, and as the regulator’s latest action indicates – it leads to enforcement action

Channelization struggles in Sweden still

To ensure that offshore operators are discouraged from such practices, though, the BOS has urged the government to tie the activity to harsher penalties. This comes against a backdrop of a rather worrying picture whereby the country’s channelization rate was anything between 69% and 82%.

This is well below the stated goal of 90%, although the report comes from the state-owned operator, ATG, and should also be taken with a grain of salt.

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