Spelinskpektionen, Swedish regulator in all matters of gambling, has talked recently about adding rules to the country’s National Board of Trade.
They released the following statement “Match fixing is considered as one of the biggest threats to sports today and as a result of this as well against betting and the companies that provide betting. There are, as far as can be judged, great risks in offering bets on games at low divisions in football,”
The statement continues “Monitoring from both sports federations and the media is lower and the athletes do not male money and are thus more vulnerable. There is also a risk of athletes or whole associations coming in contact with match fixing at lower levels and then taking the problem up through the pyramid with any sporting success,”
Betting would be limited to only the top four divisions of football while also limiting it to matches where top tiers only are involved.
The proposition from Spelinspektionen goes even further. They went as far as to discuss with the NBT about banning betting on training matches or friendlies in its entirety.
All of these rules, though, only apply to sports that are practiced within borders. There will be restrictions also to wages on individual achievements of Swedish athletes under the age of 18 as Spelinspektionen previously removed licenses for what they called under-18 activity, effectively making the whole practice punishable.
Spelinspektionen added to all of this that these regulations would take effect when the new year comes right after all of the European Commission assesses all of the procedures that need to be taken.
At least they’re giving everyone ample space for course correction on these practices.
