Swedish betting monopoly Svenska Spel is hoping an online casino product will help it arrest its declining revenues. Revenue fell 8% to SEK 2.4b (US $286m) in the three months ending Dec. 31, while profit fell 11.6% to SEK 1.25b. For the year as a whole, revenue fell 8.1% to SEK 8.94b while net income fell 9.6% to SEK 4.76b.

Svenska Spel boss Lennart Käll noted that the company’s overall market share had shrunk four points to 44%, while its online market share dipped one point to 22%. Käll estimates that the market’s online casino turnover topped SEK 2b in 2014, up 18% year-on-year. Svenska Spel has yet to share in this bounty but it has applied to the Swedish government to add online casino to its existing retail betting, casino, lottery and online betting and poker operations.

The company says the total amount spent marketing online casinos in Sweden topped SEK 1b in 2014, the only vertical to attract over 1b in spending, and Käll believes this is creating more problem gamblers. Problem gambling is Svenska Spel’s trump card, in that it believes all operators not named Svenska Spel create problem gamblers while Svenska Spel creates irresistible outbursts of pure unbounded joy and the aroma of freshly baked cookies.

In fact, Svenska Spel says its revenue decline is a result of the responsibility initiative it launched in 2013, including the elimination of certain bonuses and incentives. This newfound commitment to responsibility just happened to coincide with the European Commission formally warning Sweden that its monopoly gambling laws appeared to be flouting European Union internal market rules on the free movement of services.

The Swedish government has defended its preservation of Svenska Spel’s online betting and poker monopoly as a way of keeping a lid on Swedes’ gambling habits, but significant increases in Svenska Spel’s marketing budget in recent years have put significant holes in this theory. In October, the EC formally summoned Sweden to justify its laws before the Court of Justice for the European Union.

Swedish betting operator Betsson saw revenue rise by nearly a quarter in both Q4 and FY 2014. Revenue in the three months ending Dec. 31 rose 24% to SEK 814.7m (US $97m), a new quarterly record, while net income jumped 72% to SEK 243m. For the year as a whole, revenue was up 23% to SEK 3.03b and net income rose 37% to SEK 770.7m.

The numbers were boosted by last February’s acquisition of the Dutch-facing Oranje and Kroon Casino brands, which contributed SEK 89.9m to Q4’s revenue total. Absent these new brands, organic revenue growth was 11%. Betsson also reached a favorable agreement during the quarter regarding the final top-up payment to the new brands’ former owners, Nordic Gaming Group, that boosted Q4 net income before tax by SEK 40.1m.

Betsson’s B2C operations gross profit grew 25% in Q4 to SEK 518.8m, while B2B operations were up 22% to SEK 161.8m. Betsson earned 69% of gross profit from its casino vertical, up from 66%. Sports betting gross profit held steady at 27% of the overall figure, despite a 24% boost in turnover during the quarter. Poker profits fell by 20% to to just SEK 20m due to “a continued decreased level of activity in poker networks” in Betsson’s markets.

Betsson’s mobile channels accounted for 23% of Q4′s overall revenue, twice the amount from a year ago and up 6% from Q3. Mobile sports betting accounted for 43% of sports turnover but poor margins prevented mobile from increasing its share of betting revenue.

Nordic markets generated 71% of Q4 revenue, down from 85%, while EU markets outside the Nordic region rose from 14% to 27%. Customer deposits rose 32% in the quarter and “have never been higher,” despite a small year-on-year decrease in active customers.

Looking forward, Betsson says Q1 2015 has started with revenue “somewhat above” the average level in Q4. The only other notable occurrence to date was the shift to the Nasdaq Stockholm Large Cap on Jan. 1.

Betsson says it’s still developing its online lottery joint venture with a Chinese firm, although it noted that the anticipated new legislation to permit that venture to launch has reportedly been postponed. Regardless, Betsson says it has a “continued positive view” on the Chinese gaming market outlook.

Online gambling is an “extremely easy” method of money laundering, according to an online security researcher. Intel Security Europe CTO Raj Samani (pictured) told the recent NED (Cyber Network Exploitation and Defense) Forum summit in London that criminals were making good use of online gambling sites in regulated markets as well as grey- and black-markets.

“There is no visibility for law enforcement officers of money transfers that happen between players within the gambling site and no documentation is required to register for these services,” said Samani, who singled out Bitcoin-friendly sites as particularly prone to this chicanery.

To which we say, bullshit. Studies have shown that online poker – the only form of online gambling beyond exchange wagering outfits like Betfair in which players have an opportunity to win each other’s money rather than the house’s – is an extremely daft and inefficient method for money laundering. A study of the German gambling market concluded that even if the entire country’s online poker players engaged in money laundering 24/7, their combined effort would still only represent 3.2% of all criminal activity in Germany.

But we get it. Intel is selling security, so they have a vested interest in painting the online world as a scary netherworld of evildoers and villainy. Sen. Lindsey Graham used the recent confirmation hearing of the new US Attorney General to trot out the tired old chestnut about ISIS and Al Qaeda funding their plots via online poker. Much like the Dick Cheney’s of the world attempted to convince us that anyone with an Aladdin DVD in their collection is a potential jihadi, Intel has come to protect you from the digital ghosts under your bed.

Or maybe Intel is nervously practicing some misdirection in order to keep people from learning their terrible secret. See, until early last year, Intel Security was known as McAfee Associates, which was founded by one John McAfee. Shortly before the name change, McAfee the man was accused of unlicensed drug manufacturing, possession of unlicensed weapons and was named a person of interest in a murder investigation in Belize.

Clearly, using the sharp-witted powers of deduction employed above, the only logical conclusion to draw is that Intel Security is a clever front for an international drug trafficking and murder-for-hire ring. Could we be wrong? Sure. And we’ll admit our error when Samani does likewise.