(Newswire.net — May 17, 2018) — The Norwegian government has for a very long time maintained a strong monopoly presence in the iGaming sector. Even with the introduction of the newest gambling laws, the government’s presence in the gambling sector does not seem to be diluted at all. If anything, the new regulations may just have been designed to strengthen the government’s monopoly in the gambling arena.
In April 2018, Norwegian news outlet VG reported that a coalition of four parties presented to the country’s parliament, the Storting, with a set of measures which are aimed at protecting Norsk Tipping even better. Norsk Tipping is one of the government-run gambling powerhouses. According to the four parties, Norsk Tipping should be protected much more while at the same time block unlicensed international operators from targeting Norwegian players.
According to VG, the said measures were written by members of the Christian People’s Party, Labor Party, the Socialist Party, and the Center Party. The coming together of the parties saw the proposed measures secure a majority in parliament on April 27th, 2018. The legislators adopted the new measures on May 7th.
In the recent move by the political parties, the previous proposal to introduce measures for the creation of a licensing system and opening of a local online gaming and betting market to international operators was unceremoniously killed. The creation of the new licensing system had been spearheaded by the Minister of Culture, Trine Skei Grande.
Gambling in Norway
According to the gambling guide Play-casino-online.co.uk, gambling services in Norway are offered by two state-run bodies one of them being Norsk Tipping and the other Norsk Rikstoto. The former is mandated with operating the majority of gambling services in the country while the latter is responsible for the country’s horse racing industry.
According to the new measures introduced, the Norwegian Gaming Authority which is locally called Lotteri-og stiftelsestilsynet has been mandated with an extended number of powers. For starters, the body can punish international gambling operators that breach Norwegian gambling regulations. In addition, the Authority has been armed with powers to ask for annual reports from banks when it wants to probe for any transactions done between a Norwegian player and an international gaming or betting operator. Moreover, DNS blocking will also be implemented as part of the new laws. According to the government, this will be done to prevent the locals from accessing foreign gambling websites.
In defense of the existing monopoly system
It is important to protect the country’s existing monopoly because it provides much-needed funding to the Norwegian sports sector and to other good causes, the creators of the new measures argued. It was also revealed that the new rules will be the ones which would be used to better protect Norwegian gambling customers from questionable unregulated operators.
Shifting the ground under gambling operators
The Labor Party and Christian Democratic Party had earlier in 2018 introduced a proposal to divest the country’s $1 trillion oil fund from gambling stocks. According to the rules of the fund, it was impossible to invest in businesses that are involved in tobacco, nuclear weapon industries and landmine production.
The fund’s total investment in gambling companies at the beginning of 2018 was around NOK 26 billion (around $3.3 billion). According to E24, a local Norwegian news outlet, some of the big names in the gambling industry where the fund has invested in include Betsson, Caesars Entertainment, Wynn Resorts, Paddy Power Betfair, 888 Holdings and MGM Resorts. If the proposal is adopted, gambling will no longer have access to the fund.
The move to introduce the new measures in April could help improve the gambling landscape in the country, according to Norwegian lawmakers who spoke to the press after the passing of the new rules. They argued that more is needed to be done in relation to the way gambling services were advertised in the country (read more about it here).
The decision to target gambling ads started in late 2017 when reports emerged saying that new rules could be introduced by the end of 2018. It is only the two state-run operators that are allowed to advertise on Norwegian television. However, of late, international operators have been able to bypass this regulation and they have been placing ads on TV channels which broadcast from outside Norway. The government is looking on how to close that loophole.
Even though legislators seem to lean a lot on the side that wants the state-run operators to remain the main players in the Norwegian gambling industry, it is understood that they might actually look into ways to limit ads from these two operators. This is mainly to protect vulnerable people to gambling from being overexposed.