Swedish court overturns deposit cap injunction against Kindred

A Swedish court has overturned a Spelinspektionen ruling against the Kindred Group’s Spooniker subsidiary in relation to the country’s SEK5,000 (£422.4/€489.4/$581.2) deposit cap.

The regulator issued injunctions against both Kindred and former horse racing monopoly AB Trav och Galopp (ATG) in December 2020. It discovered discovering that players could potentially deposit more than SEK5,000 for online casino play in a month at Kindred and ATG sites.

When asked about the limit, Kindred said it made all players set a deposit limit as is required by Swedish law. Those with a limit of more than SEK5,000 were only permitted to use the operator’s sportsbook offering. If they wished to play casino games, players would be required to set a limit under this amount.

However, Spelinspektionen pointed out that a player could simply set a high limit, deposit more money and then lower their limit and play online casino games with more than SEK5,000.

As a result, it issued an injunction, with an order to pay a fine of SEK1m each week until the loophole was corrected.

However, Kindred appealed this at the Administrative Court in Linköping. The court ruled that the law refers only to a player’s deposit limits for online casino, rather than their actual deposits.

As a result, the fact that players could deposit more than SEK5,000 did not mean Kindred were in violation of the regulation, and so the injunction was overturned.

The deposit cap was implemented last July and although it was intended to last only until the end of 2020, it is now set to be extended until June 2021.

Original Article