Sweden’s online gambling licensees are choosing to challenge rather than pay financial penalties imposed by the local gambling regulatory body.

Sweden’s Spelinspektionen regulatory body has been busy this year doling out financial penalties to the country’s new online gambling licensees. But Swedish media recently reported that only one of this year’s penalized licensees has so far paid its penalty, with the rest choosing to challenge their penalties in court.

The lone payee to date is Paf, the gambling monopoly in Finland’s autonomous Swedish-speaking Åland Islands region, which coincidentally was also handed the smallest fine to date, a SEK100k penalty for allowing gamblers who’d signed up for the Spelpaus self-exclusion registry to play on its site.

The other 50-odd licensees that have been lashed by Spelinspektionen’s regulatory strap this year are challenging their penalties in court. Many penalized operators have voiced the opinion that Sweden’s new online gambling regulations – particularly those involving advertising – are too vague for operators to understand when they’re crossing red lines.