Sweden’s gambling monopolies losing war for new customers

Sweden’s domestic gambling companies have a dominant share of local residents’ registered accounts, but they’re rapidly losing market share to international gambling sites.

On Wednesday, Mediavision released survey findings that showed nearly 60% of Swedes aged 18-74 had a registered gambling account at the end of June 2018, up 12 points from a similar survey last year. Around 58% of these accounts are registered with domestic operators, led by Svenska Spel (betting), ATG (horseracing) and Postkodlotterit (lotteries).

The remaining 42% consists of accounts registered with those dastardly international interlopers, including Bet365, Unibet and LeoVegas. Furthermore, online gambling operators currently not holding a Swedish license accounted for 60% of the accounts registered in the 12 months ending June 30.

Mediavision suggested that this market share land-grab at least in part to aggressive marketing by international operators over the past year. Sweden is in the process of liberalizing its online gambling market, which is slated to get underway on January 1, 2019, and prospective applicants appear to want to firmly establish their brands in the minds of Swedish punters before the starting gun fires.