Best Online Casinos - Sweden

The Swedish online gambling market is currently on a complicated transition path from being fully controlled by the government by its single gambling authority, which distributed a limited number of licenses and supports national monopoly, to becoming an opened field for foreign companies to enter and offer their services.

In this country, the history of gambling goes way back in time. The first card houses appeared in Sweden in the 1400’s. The first land-based venue offering roulette and basset opened its doors in 1700’s at Ramlosa Brunn and was extremely popular.

In mid 1800’s, however, gambling was banned altogether, and many placed responsibility for the banning on the intervention of church. Though the isolated industry began a century later, with legalization of the national lottery, Penninglotteriet. In the 1950’s, certain forms of other betting events gained their legal status, and among such were horse racing, lotto and gaming halls. With time, came the Lotteries Act of 1994 and the Kasinolag of 1999.

According to these documents, gaming is allowed, but highly regulated. All rights to licensing new titles belong to the Swedish gambling commission, Lotteriinspektionen. Around 50 types of games, among which are poker and blackjack, can be played.

Currently, only four land-based venues are legally accepting customers, and they are located in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmo, and Sundsvall. All of them belong to the government’s company Cosmopol, which in its turn reports to Svenska Spel. This institution holds a monopoly over the gaming market in the country.

The situation with Swedish gambling regulation has been at the center of many conflicts among the country’s government and the commission of the European Union since 2002. As of that year, according to the changes in the Lotteries Act, Svenska Spel gained control over Sweden’s virtual gambling market as well as the land-based one.

While the government insisted on the fact that this way it can control the nation’s addiction to the games of chances and direct the money earned in the industry to fund socially useful projects, the EU pointed out the facts that the monopoly is not the right way to solve the problem. What is more, it could not stop the off-country online platforms from targeting Swedish residents and offer their services.

Thus far, numerous debates led to a rumor that the situation could change dramatically after the year 2019. Liberalization of the market may begin with the Swedish gambling board starting to issue more licenses to both Swedish and foreign companies.

Currently, in order for the local gamers to use services of non-Sverige online gaming destinations, they need to pass registration and submit personal information, including phone and social security numbers. Users also need to have a local bank account and registered address.

Among popular online platforms are Bet365, Lucky8, Sportingbet, and those created by the local companies, such as Betsson and Unibet, as well as the participants of the Co-Gaming LTD network. Among other managing companies that own platforms friendly to the Swedish visitors are Direx NV, Grandweb Master Ltd and its Mrxbet location, PlayCherry Ltd, MT SecureTrade Ltd, and Titanium Brace Marketing Ltd – not a direct owner, but a sub-licensing company for many Sweden and Germany-targeted versions of legit websites.

Based on our research, the local currency, Swedish krone, is compatible with about 29% of the online cashiers, which makes it about 212 gaming destinations in our database. Among them are Betway, Mr. Green, Vera & John and Videoslots, just to name a few.

Alternatively, a currency convenient for this country that is highly popular in the online gaming business and is accepted by over 90% of the cashiers is Euros. US dollars are an option, as well.

As to the payment methods, the most popular one for Sweden is Visa. It is used for both depositing and withdrawing, and is offered in over 700 cashiers across our list of options. However, before choosing it, we suggest players contact the help desks of the selected brands because there might be cases when only depositing by Visa is allowed, while withdrawals have to be claimed to another method. Among other cons of this card is slow payout time that takes between four to seven days. Weekends are included in this time frame.

The Swedes also often use the Boku payment system, as well as Entercash and Siru Mobile. These are provided at Simba Games, Hopa.com, SlotsMillion, Viking Slots, Prime Slots, Noxwin, Propawin, and Greenzorro.

One of the internationally recognized i-tech giants, Net Entertainment, is a Sweden-based software developer and provider. No wonder it is favorite among the locals. Such companies as Microgaming, Play’n GO and Playtech are also successfully competing for the affection of the gamers of this country.

Due to the peculiarities of legal regulation, poker rooms, blackjack and roulette are the three top games in Sweden, but online slots are also widely popular. When it comes to content from Net Entertainment, its Mega Fortune hit the Guinness Book of World Records as the machine to pay out 17 million Euros – the biggest jackpot in the history of online gaming. Among other hits of this supplier is Norse-themed Hall of Gods.

Also popular is Play’n GO’s Dragon Ship, as well as NoLimit City’s Tesla Jolt, and Kalamba Games’ Dino Odyssey. Among table games in our database, Lightning Roulette by Evolution Gaming is a leader among the Swedes.

The average RTP for slots is around 96.5%. The biggest possible wins are available in the progressive reels. Thus, one of Unibet’s biggest payouts of 4.1 million Euros was won by a Stockholm-based gamer who spend only 50 EUR on one of the progressive slots before hitting the jackpot.