L&L Europe penalised for Swedish self-exclusion breach

Sweden’s Gaming Authority (Spelinspektionen) has issued a SEK600,000 (£48,200/€54,800/$59,600) penalty fee to L&L Europe Ltd for its failure to enforce self-exclusions from national self-exclusion register Spelpaus.se.

L&L Europe Ltd operates 14 casino sites in Swede, including the Fun Casino, HyperCasino, No Bonus Casino and Norge Casino brands.

An investigation into L&L started after self-excluded players told Spelinspektionen that they had been able to play at its sites.

L&L said the issue was due to a change in its bank ID verification supplier, which led to a delay in processing self-exclusion requests from Spelpaus for players who had set up accounts before 1 January, 2019. This issue affected self-excluded customers from 28 April 2019 to 6 May 2019.

The operator has since returned all deposits to a self-excluded player that was still able to gamble.

Spelinspektionen said that the violation was to be considered “serious”, which would mean an operator’s licence may be revoked unless a warning is deemed sufficient.

“The fact that L&L did not complete the required Spelpaus.se checks speaks for itself that the violation should be considered serious,” Spelinspektionen said. “In addition, that a player was able to play despite being registered in Spelpaus.se further indicates that the violation is serious.”

However, as L&L corrected the issue themselves meant that a warning and penalty fee was considered appropriate the regulator concluded. The penalty fee was set at 0.1% of L&L’s turnover.