Online Casino Licensing in Sweden: What Spelinspektionen Requires

From 1 May 2026, Sweden prohibits licensed gambling operators and gambling agents from allowing or facilitating gambling financed with credit. The ban covers all forms of licensable gambling and applies regardless of how gambling is provided. Credit includes credit cards, deferred-payment arrangements such as invoices, bank loans and money borrowed from another person. Licensees must also take appropriate measures to prevent gambling from being financed with credit. For online gambling, Spelinspektionen states that licensees must block credit cards as a payment method and must not facilitate access to third-party credit providers for gambling.

Sweden’s state-owned Casino Cosmopol network has been phased out. Sundsvall closed in 2020, Gothenburg and Malmö closed in February 2024, and the final Stockholm location closed permanently in April 2025. From 1 January 2026, casino games were removed from the state-game licence category, meaning that no operator can receive a licence to provide casino games in a dedicated premises intended for casino gambling. Other land-based commercial gambling, including casino games at licensed restaurants, remains a separate licensed category.

Sweden tracks channelisation — the share of gambling activity staying within the licensed system — and the overall rate was approximately 84% in 2025, down from 85% in 2024 and below the government’s 90% target. Spelinspektionen’s reporting identifies online casino as a weaker-channelised category than betting, although the precise figures vary by gambling form and methodology. Specific reasons for using unlicensed sites are best taken directly from Spelinspektionen’s published studies and reports rather than reduced to a fixed figure on this page.

Spelpaus, Sweden’s national self-exclusion register, launched when the regulated market opened in 2019 and covered roughly 134,500 registered people at the end of 2025. Exclusion periods run from one to six months, or indefinitely. From 1 August 2026, under SIFS 2026:3, licensed operators required to register players must use the unique Actor ID and API credentials assigned by Spelinspektionen to perform checks against the national self-exclusion register. The prescribed checks cover direct marketing, player registration and player login, while operators must prevent excluded players from accessing registered gambling.

Licensed operators pay gambling tax at 22% of taxable proceeds, with proceeds calculated as stakes minus payouts. The rate increased from 18% to 22% on 1 July 2024. Swedish rules also generally permit a licensee to offer a bonus only on a player’s first gambling occasion with that licence holder, subject to the specific statutory exceptions for certain public-benefit gambling.

Given Sweden’s expanded credit-funding ban, the new Spelpaus verification requirements taking effect in August 2026, and the fact that none of the internationally licensed operators in our own data hold a Swedish licence, we are publishing this page as a factual explainer rather than a recommendation list.