The Stars Group becomes the latest impending Swedish occupant

The Stars Group has become the latest organisation to be given the green light to enter the soon to be liberalised Swedish gaming market, after the Lotteriinspektionen handed out a further licence.

Becoming the latest international operator to be awarded the go-ahead, the licence relates to the firm’s TSG Interactive subsidiary and has seen online gaming and betting provisions awarded to four of its brands, namely pokerstars.se, pokerstarscasino.se, fulltilt.se and betstars.se.

TSG, the parent company of PokerStars and SkyBet amongst others, becomes the 19th licence recipient from the Swedish regulator, with the authority previously detailing that a total of 95 licence applications had initially been received, 70 of which involve online games.

That, however, could not paint the full picture of the number of brands involved, because an application may be filed by a company that has numerous brands.

Amongst the first batch to be handed out were to Swedish state-owned operator Svenska Spel, alongside AB Trav and Galopp, Bet365, Nordic Bet, Bwin, Casumo and Interwetten.

Further inclusions were LeoVegas, who hailed Sweden becoming a locally regulated market as “a milestone”, and Betsson, whose chief executive officer Pontus Lindwall commented: “It is good that Sweden opens up the gaming market for free competition in a controlled environment. We look forward to operate on our Swedish home market as a recognised operator on equal terms.”

Just last week Global Gaming and Videoslots became the latest two operators to receive igaming licences, ahead of the launch of Sweden’s re-regulated market on January 1.

Speaking as the first decisions were announced, on what was lauded as a “historic day”, Camilla Rosenberg, director general of the Lotteriinspektionen, explained: “Because one of the objectives in reforming legislation was to achieve high channelisation, it is gratifying that many gambling companies that are currently targeting the Swedish market want to be part of the new licensing market next year.