Regulation

BOS report: Major gaps in Spelinspektionen’s oversight

By Johan Ekström · Published 27 October 2026

On 27 October, the Swedish Trade Association for Online Gambling (BOS) presented a new report on how Spelinspektionen handles its supervisory work. The report was produced by law firm Nordic Legal and compares the regulator with other Swedish authorities that have similar remits.

What has changed

Law firm Nordic Legal was commissioned by the Swedish Trade Association for Online Gambling (BOS) to produce a comparative study of Spelinspektionen’s supervision and sanction decisions. Spelinspektionen was compared with other Swedish authorities that have similar tasks. The report lands in the middle of an ongoing debate about how effective supervision of the Swedish gambling market really is.

The criticism is not new. Sweden’s National Audit Office reviewed Spelinspektionen’s work back in 2024 and concluded that the supervision is not effective enough to meet the expectations that parliament and government expressed in connection with the re-regulation of the gambling market. The review also found that the number of inspections opened per year fell sharply between 2019 and 2023, from 263 to 58, and that the authority has so far not followed up on the results of its supervisory decisions, meaning it lacks knowledge of whether identified faults have actually been fixed.

Nordic Legal previously compared Swedish and Danish supervision in an October 2025 study commissioned by BOS. That report found that guidance from Spelinspektionen on the practical limits of the duty of care has so far been limited, meaning operators only gained a clearer understanding of the rules after supervisory cases or case law clarified them. The same report noted that the Swedish approach to supervision is less graduated, with Spelinspektionen often applying extensive sanctions even for first-time or unintentional breaches.

What it means for you

The report is primarily aimed at lawmakers and Spelinspektionen itself, not at individual player accounts. But how consistently an authority supervises and sanctions ultimately affects the protection you actually get as a customer of an operator holding a Swedish licence. If oversight is uneven or unpredictable, some licence holders risk getting off lightly while others face harsher consequences for similar shortcomings.

Whatever direction the supervision debate takes, the same safety net applies to you as a player. You can exclude yourself from all licensed gambling at any time via Spelpaus.se, and anyone who wants to talk about their gambling can turn to Stödlinjen.se. Also remember that a welcome bonus may only be offered at your first gaming occasion with each licence holder, regardless of which brand or sister site you log in to.

The bigger picture

The report arrives as channelisation – the share of gambling taking place within the licensed system – is falling. According to Spelinspektionen’s channelisation report, dated 15 June 2026 and based on player surveys and internet traffic measurements, the authority’s estimates for 2023 and 2024 were 86 and 85 per cent respectively. The state’s target is considerably higher. Spelinspektionen has itself confirmed that the state’s channelisation target is not being met, since the goal is at least 90 per cent but Sweden only reaches 85 per cent.

BOS has used that trend to call for a broad new state gambling inquiry, and the new supervision report can be seen as another contribution to the same argument: that the rules and how they are applied need review if more players are to stay within the licensed, protected market. As a player, it is worth keeping track of which licence holder sits behind a brand, since that is the entity Spelinspektionen can ultimately hold accountable.