The Swedish Court of Appeal has upheld Spelinspektionen’s decision to reject an application for bingo terminals across 297 retail-based gaming locations.
The case centred on whether bingo could be offered through terminals in kiosks and similar premises primarily used for non-gambling purposes.
Spelinspektionen rejected the application in March 2024, arguing that bingo provision outside traditional bingo halls was not appropriate from a general standpoint.
An Administrative Court later overturned that decision, but the Court of Appeal has now restored the regulator’s original ruling.
The court found that Sweden’s Gambling Act is prohibitory in structure and reflects a restrictive view of self-service terminals. On that basis, it ruled that bingo terminals should not be permitted in retail environments where gambling is not the venue’s main purpose.
The ruling is significant because Sweden’s gambling framework separates different forms of licensed gambling by product and setting. Spelinspektionen states that the market is divided between online gambling and betting, gambling for public benefit such as lotteries and land-based bingo and state-controlled activity such as land-based casinos and token machines.
That structure reflects the wider policy basis of Sweden’s 2019 re-regulation, which opened parts of the market to licensed competition while retaining strict controls around consumer protection, public-interest gambling and land-based formats.
The Court of Appeal’s decision also comes during a period of continued judicial testing of Spelinspektionen’s powers. Operators and associations have increasingly challenged regulatory decisions, including enforcement cases involving duty of care, sanction fees and the scope of the Gambling Act.
For Spelinspektionen, the ruling confirms that location remains central to how land-based bingo is assessed. The regulator’s position was that retail premises such as kiosks create a materially different environment from bingo halls, where gambling is the principal activity and supervision can be structured around that purpose.
The decision follows further Swedish court activity in responsible gambling enforcement, after Videoslots’ SEK 12m ($1.3m) penalty was upheld while Roar Vegas’ SEK 8m sanction was annulled.
Sweden’s regulated market has been supervised by Spelinspektionen since the Gambling Act came into force on 1 January 2019
