40% of All Spelpaus Sign-Ups Are Younger Adults

Swedish gambling regulator, Spelinspektionen, has announced that nearly half of those who have signed up to the Spelpaus.se gambling self-exclusion register are between the ages of 25 and 34 years old.

The number of individuals who registered has surpassed 35,000, while…

… 40% of those who self-excluded fit into this age category.

More than 2,800 people signed up to the scheme in May alone.

The Spelpaus Program

This program enables Swedish consumers to block themselves from accessing legal gambling services in the country, while also being excluded from all advertising related to the gambling industry.

The self-exclusion tool was rolled out with the opening of the Swedish regulated online gambling market.

Players must register with their BankID number and are then blocked from accessing iGaming sites. On the other hand, operators are required to remove details about those consumers from all their marketing databases.

Spelpaus.se is effective across licensed online casinos, slot games, and lotteries, as well as land-based services including retail stores and bingo halls.

Self-exclusion can last one, three or six months, or until further notice. Most individuals who join the program, exclude themselves for an indefinite period of time, which can be up to one year.

By the ruling of the Administrative Court of Linköping from March, gamblers cannot end self-exclusion periods early, upholding the authority of the scheme.

In order to obtain a license, gambling operators have to integrate with Spelpaus.se. Those who fail to oblige with this condition can face hefty fines and potentially lose their licenses.

Strict Fines

A number of licensees have already been sanctioned by the Swedish regulator for failing to comply with this license condition.

One of the recent cases involved Genesis Gaming and Paf Consulting. Despite self-excluding themselves, a number of customers were still able to gain access to sites operated by these two companies.

Spelinspektionen fined the Genesis with a massive penalty for breaching the license condition …

… SEK4m or £329,000/€383,000/$429,000!

The fine was particularly high because the operator was previously warned about these activities.

Regulator Fight with Excessive Advertising

The Swedish gambling regulatory body, Spelinspektionen, is putting major efforts into combatting excessive advertising of the gambling industry in Sweden.

As a part of this process, the initial step was…

… formalizing the cooperation with Konsumentverket, the national consumer agency.

Another essential piece of the puzzle is certainly the Spelpaus.se program.

Just the mere fact that 35,000 registered players decided to self-exclude themselves from play and receiving gambling ads speaks volumes about the success of this project.

What additionally emphasizes this impression is that 40% of such players are members of the younger population.

It seems like people between 25 and 34 years old in Sweden are becoming more aware of the issues that gambling can cause. Each month, the number of consumers using the Spelpaus scheme is increasing.

In May alone, more than 2,800 players decided to put the stop to their gaming accounts, most of them until further notice.