Steve Hoare

Estonia is set to review its gambling tax framework by 2028, as part of reforms outlined in the newly signed coalition pact between the ruling Reform Party and its majority partner Eesti 200.

The coalition, which has governed since 2023 under Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, will push forward changes from 2025 onwards, aimed at strengthening national security, reforming social protections, and accelerating the transition to climate neutrality.

Gambling reforms are firmly on the fiscal agenda, as the coalition will review its tax agreement of 2024, which reclassified remote gambling levies under the Excise Duty Act and aligned the country’s framework with broader EU compliance standards.

Estonia’s 2024 tax reform saw the Remote Gambling Tax on games of chance increased from 5% to 6% of net bets, alongside similar hikes to the Game of Chance Tournament Tax, Toto Tax, and Lottery Tax — with the latter rising sharply from 18% to 22% on ticket sales.

According to published articles, the government will “initiate the amendment of the Remote Gambling Tax Act in parliament to find additional funding for sports and culture. We will reduce the annual tax rate by 0.5% and reach 4% by the year 2028.”

As such, a ‘dedicated national fund’ will be created to finance major sports infrastructure, using proceeds from online gambling. Projects will be selected in line with priorities set by the Estonian Olympic Committee, ensuring funds are channelled into nationally significant venues.

“Amendments to the Remote Gambling Tax Act will be initiated in parliament to find additional funding for sport and culture,” the agreement states.

A second fund is to be launched to incentivise private-sector co-financing of culture and sport. Here, 20% of new gambling tax revenues will be earmarked for matched donations, following a model where the state covers one-third and corporate sponsors the remaining two-thirds. Only non-profits listed as tax-exempt will qualify.

“To attract private funding for the cultural and sports sectors, we will create a private fundraising fund by amending the Gambling Tax Act and directing 20% of the additional revenue into this new fund.

“We will use a principle where one-third of financial contributions come from the state and two-thirds from companies, in the case of donations. Support will be based on organisations listed as tax-exempt non-profits and foundations.”

This renewed policy push builds on Prime Minister Kallas’s 2024 intervention, in which her government enacted strict advertising laws to curb the visibility of gambling.

Measures included broad bans on celebrity endorsements, inducements such as “risk-free” bets, and marketing targeted at underage audiences. Enforcement was handed to Estonia’s Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority (TTJA).

At the start of the year, the Ministry of Finance detailed that it would hear feedback on applying a new tax framework for Estonian gambling. However the Reform Party maintains that it will grant no audience on advertising restrictions.

Estonia’s liberal coalition is betting that the industry can remain commercially viable while being repositioned as a contributor to public welfare — not just government coffers.

Svenska Spel, Sweden’s state-owned betting and gaming company, cannot get a break at the moment, having been placed under supervision by the country’s gaming inspectorate, Spelinspektionen.

The regulator has initiated a review of Svenska Spel, alongside state-owned racing body AB Trav och Galopp (ATG) and Malta-based lottery brokerage app Lotto Direct Ltd, to check compliance with the Swedish Gambling Act of 2018.

Spelinspektionen’s scrutiny is particularly focused with one specific section of the Gambling Act, this being a requirement that licence holders notify the regulator of any changes in an application or registration.

The regulator states that it will publish the results of the reviews when a decision has been made. This will include any decisions around an intervention, which could range from anything to a warning to extra licence conditions to a fine or penalty.

While nothing is concrete, the timing of this investigation is not ideal for Svenska Spel in particular, coming just three days after the operator won a landmark court decision against a Spelinspektionen court decision.

Svenska Spel and Spelinspektionen – a long-running battle
The recently solved legal spat between Skolinspektionen and Svenska Spel dates back to 2021 when the regulator conducted an audit 17 October-17 December including an examination of 10 customers who had lost money during that period.

The audit concluded that Svenska Spel had not acted proactively enough in preventing harm and potential problem gambling among the 10 customers examined. The firm was criticised as being too ‘passive’ in implementing its duty of care policies, particularly due to the players in question already being classified as high risk.

All 10 players had high deposit limits, made large deposits and incurred large losses, while also making several deposits a day and playing frequently, including at night. Some had also excluded themselves from certain games.

In March 2024, the regulator issued Svenska Spel a SEK 100m (€90,000) penalty for failing to meet the duty of care standards of the 2018 Gambling Act. Svenska Spell responded to this with an appeal, which the Administrative Court in Linköping recently reached a decision on.

A milestone moment
In a rare case of a court siding with a gambling firm against a regulatory decision, the Linköping Court ruled against Spelinspektionen’s decision. This decision was based on the fact that Svenska Spel had taken ‘several gambling liability measures’ against the 10 customers including access limitations and restrictions.

The interventions showed that the operator had been taking action against the customers’ excessive gambling, the court stated that it could not share the same opinion of Spelinspektionen. The court also stated that it does not believe it was sufficiently clear that Svenska Spel had failed to avoid the penalty.

“It is gratifying that the Administrative Court upholds our appeal and overturns the decision of the Swedish Gambling Authority,” said Fredrik Wastenson, CEO and Business Area Manager at Svenska Spel Sport & Casino AB.

“We appealed because we believe that the penalty fee is disproportionate in relation to the shortcomings and because there is a need to create greater clarity in the interpretation of the duty of care.

“We believe that the authority may only take measures that are supported by the legal order, the so-called principle of legality, which the court has also stated.”

However, the resumption of an investigation into Svenska Spel for potential compliance failures shows that the regulator is not out of the woods yet. Though this review is not related to the previous audit and penalty, it does demonstrate the relentlessness of regulation in this industry.

In the background, Sweden’s Tidö Coalition government has yet to present a formal plan to split Svenska Spel’s business.

The coalition supports a proposal to divest Svenska Spel’s online gambling and sports betting division to the private sector, while retaining its lottery and keno operations as a state monopoly. The initiative is backed by the Moderate Party and the Sweden Democrats, who argue that the state should not be involved in competitive online gambling.

The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has warned LiveScore and LiveScore Bet about advertising to minors.

Two ads were flagged down by a complainant, who observed the betting promotions on LiveScore’s under-18 Android and iOS apps. Users who clicked on the ads were subsequently redirected to LiveScore Bet.

It is important to note that LiveScore is a sports data app, while LiveScore Bet the group’s betting and gambling platform. The latter also uses the former as an advertising partner.

When questioned about the issue, LiveScore Bet pointed out that LiveScore’s app itself had two distinct account systems – one for under-18s and one for adults. It further noted that after it was notified, a test was carried out to try and replicate the occurrence on an Android device to no success.

On iOS however, the operator explained that there was a historic version of the app that did have a technical error where such promotions were displayed to under-18s in some instances.

With the latest app update showing no signs of error, LiveScore Bet added that the issue was isolated to only one version of the app, therefore impacting only a small number of users.

Responding to the ASA in its own statement, LiveScore also asserted that it maintains extensive age gating across its LiveScore sports media and data product to ensure that any underage consumers using this non-betting platform cannot access the betting one.

The firm maintains that a ‘technical bug in this safeguarding’ led to the issue with the ads outline above. It also argues that one of the two ads raised by the complainant ‘has still never been verified as accurate’.

“LiveScore Bet has nothing to gain from under-18s seeing our adverts, given that such an audience cannot use our products,” LiveScore’s statement declared.

The ASA acknowledged the explanations, but maintained that it had seen the ads appear on the Android version, even if it was caused by a technical fault.

Deeming the promotions “not appropriately targeted”, the advertising authority requested for stricter measures to ensure that this does not happen again, and will most likely monitor the apps more closely moving forward.

Kenya has used a buffer ban on gambling adverts to enforce a brand new list of directives that will implement multiagency scrutiny of the market.

A 30-day blanket ban was introduced on 29 April by Kenya’s Betting Control and Licensing Board (BCLB), which suspended all forms of gambling advertisements across media platforms.

This was used as sort of a regulatory ‘reset button’ due to rising rates of underage participation in the African nation’s rapidly growing gambling market.

With the temporary suspension now lifted, the BCLB has introduced new administrative guidelines that would see cross-government collaboration to keep marketing efforts in check.

Some of the new requirements prohibit operators from using ‘call-to-action’ language (ie “bet now”) in advertising materials, together with mandatory responsible gambling messages that take at least 20% of the ad space.

To ensure that all requirements are met, operators must now send marketing communications to the BCLB for approval.

After that, the materials must then be sent to the Kenya Film Classification Board (KFCB) – a body that is responsible for determining whether advertisements are fit for public use. If the marketing material fails on any of these two stages, it will be barred from being published.

Advertising practices of operators will also be subjected to regular audits not only by the BCLB and the KFCB, but also by Kenya’s Media Council, Communications Authority, and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.

More regulations on the horizon
As mentioned before, all of the guidelines are being enacted administratively and are limited to advertising controls. Separately, there is a legislative draft bill introduced in 2023 that is much larger in scope and is still pending parliamentary approval.

For example, one of the proposals set out in the bill is to introduce stricter age verification protocols for operators – whereas the 2025 guidelines only touch on ad content restrictions.

Similarly, while the latest guidelines are primarily focused on safer play messaging across advertisements, the draft bill calls for the expansion of consumer protection standards, such as mandatory responsible gambling programmes for operators.

Some of the other proposals carrying significant industry impact that the gambling advertising guidelines do not cover include updated tax regimes, new licensing categories, as well as the establishment of a completely new gambling regulator replacing the BCLB.

Since 2023, voting on the bill has been postponed several times, and there is still no clear indication of when this might happen.