Swedish Online Sportsbook Svenska Spel Accused of Cheating

Swedish gambling and sports betting monopoly Svenska Spel has been accused of changing odds when high rollers show up in an attempt to cut their own losses.

According to Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, not all punters who bet on sports in Sweden at the Svenska Spel website see the same odds. The group supposedly uses a player tracking system to flag and monitor big winners. When these players show up again later, the computer changes the odds displayed, preventing them from winning as much money.

Aftonbladet was able to illustrate their claims by showing different odds for the same event displayed under two different online betting accounts: one of a casual player, and one of a professional bettor.

Svenska Spel’s monopolistic position in the Swedish gambling market is already unstable, but this news could serve to undermine it even further.

Speaking with GamblingCompliance, Svenska Spel’s sports betting manager Staffan Rehnstrom shuffled around the issue. “We can see all the betting on our website, and that is one of the parts of our risk management,” he explained.

Rehnstrom also pointed out that their sports betting website places a limit of 1000 Swedish kronor (€100) on all bets. This, he argued, is evidence that Svenska Spel does not discriminate between casual and professional gamblers.

The future of Svenska Spel is hanging in a balance. Sweden’s new government has been considering the possibility of changing Swedish gambling laws to do away with the ageing monopoly, liberalizing the country’s online gambling market and opening it up to foreign operators.

Regulations imposed on the current monopoly are not strict, and experts say it is unlikely that these claims will be investigated. What effect this news will have on Svenska Spel’s hold over internet gambling in Sweden is not known.