Sweden’s online gambling operators are expressing alarm at the government’s proposal to limit online casino activity during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Earlier this week, local media quoted Sweden’s Social Security Minister Ardalan Shekarabi saying the government was “looking carefully at extraordinary measures to protect Swedish consumers” from the potential negative implications of playing online casino games while on a COVID-19 lockdown in their homes.

Shekarabi was responding to statistics from the Spelinspektionen gambling regulator showing a one-third rise in registrations and log-ins with 17 Swedish-licensed online casino operators in the previous two weeks. Shekarabi said if these figures continue to increase, the government “will take action.”

State-run gambling operator Svenska Spel issued a statement on Thursday taking issue with what analyst Martin Johansson called “misleading statistics.” Johansson noted that registrations didn’t automatically equate to increased online casino play and that the 17 companies cited by Spelinspektionen were “smaller, purely online casino companies and thus it is not a representative selection.”