Swedish Lotto Monopoly Svenska Spel Raises Gambling Age to 18

The lottery has been very popular in Sweden for ages. The first wide range lottery was
introduced to the Swedish public in 1897, and the Swedes have been
gambling ever since. At this point, the lottery market is highly
monopolized and run by Svenska Spel.


As is the case with most gambling companies across Europe, Svenska Spel has recently run into
conflict with the European Commission regarding some of its rules.
The specific rule in question is in regards to the age of gamblers.


Surprisingly enough, in
Sweden, minors had a wide range of options to gamble prior to recent
developments. The European Commission caught wind of these
possibilities, and decided to confront them right away. The EC stated
that it feels that Svenska Spel is all about raking in money rather
than protecting consumers. To back up its argument, it pointed out
that 13 of 22 Svenska Spel games did not have age restrictions.


As a result, Svenska Spel
jumped into action, and put out some new rules to show that the
business cares about customers. Being that Svenska Spel is government
owned, these actions will shed a more favorable light on Swedish
gambling law, and a higher degree of legitimization in the eyes
of the heavily criticizing European community.


Svenska Spel has now
imposed new age restrictions on all of their games. Minors will no
longer be able to play on the plentiful gaming machines or purchase
lottery tickets. The organization’s information director, Andreas
Jansson, claimed that the new age restrictions were intended to
simplify things for store owners, who currently have to enforce
different age restrictions on different games.


These new age restrictions
also apply to gambling sites and online casinos in Sweden. The
popularity of internet gambling in Sweden is made possible
through the Svenska Spel gambling websites and the plethora of
foreign sites that are available to Swedes. Whether on land or
online, Swedish minors will, from this point on, have to wait until
they are 18 for more opportunities to gamble.