Online gambling in Sweden: regulation, licence and market guide

Is online gambling legal in Sweden?

Commercial online gambling (casino, online bingo, computer-simulated slots) and betting are open to any operator licensed by Spelinspektionen, the Swedish Gambling Authority, for up to five years. Lotteries and land-based slot machines remain with state-owned Svenska Spel and public-benefit associations, and land-based casinos were abolished from 1 January 2026 after Casino Cosmopol closed its last venue. Licensees pay 22% of gross gaming revenue, may offer a bonus only at a player's first play, must connect to the Spelpaus self-exclusion register, and since 1 July 2023 may only use game software from suppliers holding a Swedish B2B permit. A government memorandum of September 2025 proposes to bring any online gambling that people in Sweden can join within the Act from 1 January 2027.

Regulated: Private operators can hold a local licence for online casino and/or betting.

Who regulates gambling in Sweden?

• Spelinspektionen (Swedish Gambling Authority) (SGA) — Licenses and supervises all gambling in Sweden, issues B2B software permits, runs Spelpaus.se and imposes sanctions
• Konsumentverket (Swedish Consumer Agency) (KO) — Supervises gambling marketing under the Gambling Act's moderation requirement and the Marketing Act

Sweden gambling licence: how it works

Spelinspektionen issues a licence for commercial online gambling (chapter 7 of the Gambling Act) and a licence for betting (chapter 8), each for up to five years. Applicants may be established in Sweden or elsewhere in the EEA; companies from outside the EEA must appoint a representative resident in Sweden. The application is filed in Swedish with an application fee of SEK 230,000, and processing starts only when the fee is paid. The gambling system, including supplier games, must be certified by an accredited body under Spelinspektionen's technical regulations (SIFS 2022:3), and the operator must integrate Spelpaus, mandatory deposit limits and the one-bonus rule before launch. Since 1 July 2023 anyone who manufactures, supplies, installs or adapts gambling software for the Swedish market needs a separate software permit (application fee SEK 120,000), and licensees may only use software from permit holders.

What an applicant needs

• Company established in Sweden or the EEA; non-EEA applicants appoint a representative resident in Sweden
• Fit-and-proper review of owners, board and senior management, including financial standing
• Certification of the gambling system and supplier games by an accredited testing body under SIFS 2022:3
• Integration with Spelpaus.se and a self-exclusion check at every login
• Mandatory player-set deposit limits per day, week and month, login-time limits and self-tests
• Game software only from holders of a Swedish gambling software permit
• Swedish company registration number for monthly gambling-tax filing
• Anti-money-laundering procedures under the Act on Measures against Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing

Gambling taxes in Sweden

• Operators: 22% of GGR (spelskatt), assessed monthly, since 1 July 2024 (18% from 2019 to June 2024), plus 20.6% corporate income tax.
• Players: None on winnings from operators licensed in Sweden or elsewhere in the EEA; winnings from operators outside the EEA are taxed as income from capital at 30%.
• Also: Supervision fees are paid in advance per licence. Lotteries for public-benefit purposes are exempt from gambling tax, but from 1 January 2026 lotteries run by or for political organizations lose that exemption and the exemptions from the credit and bonus rules.

Advertising, player protection, KYC and payments

Advertising

Marketing must be moderate (måttfullhet), may not target people under 18 or players registered on Spelpaus, and direct marketing to self-excluded players is prohibited. A bonus or other financial incentive may be offered only the first time a player plays with a licensee, across all of its brands. Since 1 July 2023 it is also illegal to promote or otherwise aid unlicensed gambling, which Spelinspektionen has enforced against software suppliers. Advertising by unlicensed operators is prohibited and Spelinspektionen can order warning notices on unlicensed sites.

Responsible gaming

Players must set deposit limits by day, week and month at registration and may set login-time limits; Spelpaus.se gives national self-exclusion for one, three or six months or until further notice; licensees have a documented duty of care (omsorgsplikt) to monitor and act on harmful play. Credit for gambling has always been banned for licensees, and from 1 May 2026 the Act (SFS 2026:90) prohibits licensees and gambling agents from allowing or contributing to gambling financed with credit, which in practice ends credit-card deposits.

Identity and age verification

Identity is verified at registration, typically with BankID, and players must be 18 or over (20 for Svenska Spel's land-based products). Spelpaus is checked at each login. Operators are obliged entities under the Swedish AML Act with customer due diligence and reporting to the Financial Intelligence Unit.

Payments

Swish, bank transfer through Trustly-style instant rails and debit cards dominate; Pay N Play onboarding through BankID is common. Credit-funded deposits are prohibited from 1 May 2026. Winnings are paid to an account in the player's name. Crypto is not used by Swedish licensees. The September 2025 memorandum proposes extending the promotion ban to payment services for unlicensed gambling from 2027.

Notable restrictions

• One bonus per player per licensee, at first play only
• No credit for gambling; credit-funded deposits banned from 1 May 2026
• Mandatory deposit limits before play
• Game software only from Swedish permit holders (closed loop since July 2023)
• No betting on fouls, on under-18 individual performances or on lower-league Swedish football
• Land-based casinos abolished from 1 January 2026

Sweden iGaming market: size, players and payments

Net gaming revenue of the licensed market was SEK 28.2 billion in 2025 (SEK 27.9 billion in 2024), of which commercial online gambling and betting accounted for SEK 18.4 billion or about 65% (Spelinspektionen, statistics and annual report 2025).

Spelinspektionen estimates the channelization rate of the competitive market at 84% for 2025 (85% in 2024), 96% for betting and 81% for online casino; about 94% of players are estimated to play with licensed operators. Licensed gambling equaled SEK 3,339 per adult, or 0.9% of disposable income.

Sweden is a mobile-first market with BankID-based onboarding; Spelinspektionen does not publish a mobile share of revenue.

At the end of 2025 there were 588 licence and permit holders, including 76 operators holding 130 commercial online gambling and betting licences and 197 software permit holders; the ten largest licensees generate 73% of licensed revenue. Svenska Spel (state) and ATG (horse racing) compete with Kindred, Betsson, LeoVegas, Bet365 and others.

Timeline: how Sweden got here

1. 2018-06Riksdag adopts the Gambling Act (2018:1138) and the Gambling Tax Act
2. 2019-01Licensed market opens with an 18% GGR tax; Spelpaus.se launches
3. 2023-07B2B software permit introduced and an explicit ban on promoting unlicensed gambling takes effect
4. 2024-07Gambling tax rises from 18% to 22% of GGR
5. 2025-04Casino Cosmopol closes its last venue in Stockholm on 24 April
6. 2025-09Memorandum Ds 2025:23 proposes a participation-based scope for the Act from 1 January 2027
7. 2026-01Land-based casino licences abolished; political-party lotteries lose tax and bonus exemptions
8. 2026-05Ban on credit-funded gambling (SFS 2026:90) enters into force on 1 May

Outlook

The government's September 2025 memorandum would replace the current 'directed at Sweden' test with a participation test from 1 January 2027, so that any online gambling that people in Sweden can join needs a Swedish licence unless effective blocking is in place, and would extend the promotion ban to payment and other services; as of September 2026 the proposal was still working through the legislative process. Spelinspektionen continues to sanction software suppliers whose games appear on unlicensed sites, and industry bodies are pressing for the channelization gap in online casino to be addressed.

Launching in Sweden with GameBridge

Turnkey (your licence, our platform). Swedish licences are granted to the operator's own EEA company, so the operator holds the Spelinspektionen licence and runs on GameBridge technology; GameBridge does not hold a Swedish licence or software permit and does not guarantee approval.

A Swedish brand on GameBridge runs with Swedish front-end content supplied by the operator, a SEK wallet and geo-controls admitting Swedish residents only, with BankID-style identity verification and a Spelpaus check at every login. Deposit limits by day, week and month are collected at registration, the bonus engine enforces the one-bonus-at-first-play rule across brands, and credit-funded deposit methods are switched off in line with the May 2026 ban. The catalog is filtered to studios holding a Swedish software permit, and GameBridge Studios and Originals releases ship with the certification package an accredited testing body needs under SIFS 2022:3. Swish and instant bank rails connect through the operator's own payment agreements on request.

• SEK wallet and Swedish-market geo lists
• BankID-compatible onboarding and Spelpaus check at login
• Deposit, loss and login-time limits collected before play
• Bonus engine enforcing the first-play-only rule across brands
• Catalog filter for Swedish software-permit holders
• Monthly gambling-tax and regulator reporting exports
• Certification package for GameBridge Studios and Originals releases

Online slots, live casino and betting on football, ice hockey and trotting lead Swedish lobbies; GameBridge aggregates the permit-holding studios Swedish players already know and builds exclusive GameBridge Studios titles to the operator's brief.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and review

Reviewed against the sources below on 11 September 2026. Regulation changes; confirm the current position with local counsel before launch.

• Onlinespel och vadhållning — ansök om licens — Spelinspektionen, accessed 2026-09-11
• Spelinspektionens föreskrifter (SIFS 2026:1) om avgifter för tillsyn — Spelinspektionen, accessed 2026-09-11
• Spelinspektionen årsredovisning 2025 — Spelinspektionen, accessed 2026-09-11
• Kanaliseringsgrad på den svenska spelmarknaden 2025 — Spelinspektionen, accessed 2026-09-11
• Gambling Act (2018:1138), unofficial translation updated to SFS 2026:1077 — Spelinspektionen, accessed 2026-09-11
• Spellagens tillämpningsområde, Ds 2025:23 — Regeringskansliet, accessed 2026-09-11
• Gambling Laws and Regulations Report 2026: Sweden — ICLG, accessed 2026-09-11

Regulatory summaries are provided for orientation only and are not legal advice. Licensing requirements change; we validate them with you during scoping.