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Speaker 3 (00:00.106)
In Europe, Norway stands alone as the last state to maintain exclusive monopoly rights for all gambling activities. Regulatory developments in the Nordics will see Finland adopt a liberalised market for online gambling joining Sweden and Denmark by 2027. Yet factions are growing in distorting with regards to the monopoly status of Norse tipping in Ristotto. As despite significant blocks and penalties, can Norway's government protect consumers from a growing encroachment of gambling?
I'm Ted Memwear and I'm joined by Ted Orme Clay, editor of SBC News and senior business journalist Victor Cahied to discuss the latest developments in Norwegian gambling. But before we begin, I would like to thank our sponsors OptiMove, the number one CRM in marketing solution for the global gaming industry. So Ted, Victor, how are you guys doing?
Good Ted, good. Thanks for having us today.
I'm good as well, thank you Ted, yeah, had a decent weekend, hope you both did as well.
Yep, enjoyed the sun, enjoyed the heat.
Speaker 1 (01:00.462)
Yeah, I'm not enjoying the sun right now because obviously we've to close the curtains and shut them off from the outside world for the purposes of this camera. yeah, we'll see it later, I'm sure. I've got a vitamin D.
All right, Victor, let me turn to you and you're kind of seeing ruptures in Norway's market. Why have you picked up this story?
Because the market in Norway is, I think, one of the most interesting ones at the moment in Europe. is on its way to become the only monopoly in the Nordics region. We've had Finland, Finland is gonna transition in 2027, we've had Denmark, we've had Sweden. in the Nordics region,
this normally is going to be the last standing monopoly. However, because of that, are currently ongoing debates on the highest political level of whether or not this monopoly model should be abolished and a license model should be adopted instead, or things should remain as they are. So a lot of political talks currently going on.
So Ted, take me through the current state of Norway, which is kind of reserved as a monopoly status for New York stripping and Ristofo. And how's that kind of playing out?
Speaker 1 (02:27.862)
Well, like you say, Norway is one of the few European countries to still have one of these monopoly systems in place. I think it's really just them and Finland are the only two left. It's quite a unique model for the Nordic markets, really. Not one that we've seen in lots of other countries for many years. Even lots of other Nordic markets have moved away from it. Obviously Denmark and Sweden being the two most noble ones there. I mean, well, they've been the only two other ones, I guess, by virtue of geography.
But those have proven to be quite valuable markets for a lot of countries, quite competitive ones. Denmark in particular, think like Lille Vegas have been targeting exposure there, haven't they, past couple of years for their new sports book brand. And then you've only, yeah, you've got Norway and Finland being the only ones left. They're quite, Norway is particularly proving quite stubborn, I think, in wanting to maintain this. The monopoly is currently held by Norsk, tipping and Norsk.
Rick's Toto, however pronounced those right, which are for horse racing and betting respectively. The government at the moment, which is controlled by the centre left leaning Labour party, is leaning more towards supporting the monopoly and maintaining things as they are. The Conservatives, from what I've seen that Victor's reported on, Victor's written some very good articles about this by the way that encourage our listeners to check out SBC News. They're a bit more split on it. There's some elements there that we'd like to see a
a multi-licensed private market come into effect like we see in the rest of Europe and which by the looks of things Finland is moving towards with some interesting legislative developments there last week. But Norway is really just the lone holdout for this monopoly system that most other countries have been moving away from.
Victor, I mean, there's always been kind of a gambling conflict in Norway in terms of you do have international operators going there. And also it's never kind of addressed its overall kind of regime. So there's always been legal battles in Norway, I think, be it against Betsen or Unibet for kind of encroachment. But tell me more about kind of the condition as to why the kind of starting to kind of even talk about
Speaker 3 (04:45.772)
taking away monopoly privileges for North Kibbing and Ristotto.
Basically, let me start from the very beginning. We have the conservative party. This is the second party in size currently in Norway. Historically, they've been for the protection of the monopoly regime. However, in recent times, there's been a faction that's kind of divided within. It's led by Tagge Petersen.
he and alongside I think four or five other conservative members are calling for the introduction of a licensing regime. have been a lot of arguments for it. This group of people, of conservatives, have been supported by a number of international gambling organizations as well, one of them being the International Betting Integrity Association, the other one
being the European Gaming and Betting Association, as well as the Norwegian Online Gaming Industry Association or NBO and its Secretary General, Carl Friedrich Stenstrom. So all of these people collectively are saying that the current monopoly resume is not working as it should be. They've asked
people to turn to neighboring countries and they've given them as an example of a good multi-licensing regime in place. They're saying that state revenues have increased. A big talking point of those supporters is also the reduction of problem gambling rates because of the introduction of this multi-licensing regime.
Speaker 2 (06:38.374)
We hear talking points that we've heard before, but they have weight to it when they come from such big organizations like the ones that I've listed beforehand.
And I'm going to throw this out there. Do you think the Norway's problem is that, okay, if you have your neighboring countries, your Denmarks, your Swedens and your Finlands that have a liberalized framework, there's just a natural encroachment of, you your players are going to be exposed to well, you know, unlicensed operators or operators that know that, you know, they can use kind of networks to promote their products to your national customers. Isn't that just a case of
It's a complicated one. think it's a bit of a double-edged sword really, because unlicensed operators obviously shouldn't be targeting the Norway market where they're not allowed, where it's a grey market as far as they're concerned. from a legal standpoint, the only companies customers in Norway should be betting with are the Rix Toto and the Tipping.
But as you say, it is almost a given that this is going to happen, especially when it is the, as we've said, the loan holdout in this regard. It's the only one that doesn't have a multi, a multi-licensed private market. Customers in Norway are going to be seeing that in other countries, there's a lot more on offer. There's a lot more options regarding what they want to, whether they want to bet or gamble, what lotteries they want to play and things like that. And they will naturally be curious and want to find better.
better offerings and more competitive odds and yeah and just things like that and more markets. that is the issue, yeah that's the issue they've got is like yeah sure companies shouldn't be targeting these markets but customers will always be looking for a better option when they're as closed off as they are.
Speaker 3 (08:41.206)
Yeah, Victor, going back to you, we've seen multi-million pound court cases in Norway. One thing that always comes back is the actual exposure in Norway, be it through your multi-channel online platforms for sports. You're talking about Eurosports, if they show coverage of any events, it will have gambling sponsorships, also your payment networks. Can one single regime really protect itself out and out from any kind of gambling exposure?
I don't think so because they cannot, no regime can restrict customers to not play with the main, with the monopolistic company and not turn to other alternatives. Actually, this is one of the points that the EGBA has stated on multiple occasions that they cited statistics from H2O gambling capital.
half of the, almost half, 46 % of the Norwegian population has already turned towards high gaming alternatives from abroad. And we've seen this happen publicly before, I think a few years back, Norwegian regulator ordered Kindred and Betsson to step away from the Norwegian market because they were facilitating
not that they were facilitating specifically, but because customers were playing with these websites and both companies have said, we've never been in the Norwegian market. We're just licensed. We offer licensed products. We are licensed in Malta. We are licensed holders and customers are free to do what they want. They're free to access our services. unless...
It's a totalitarian regime. don't see how any state-owned company can withhold customers from going abroad.
Speaker 3 (10:38.19)
So thanks guys, we're going to end the break. And then when we come back, we're going to talk more about kind of Norway's conditions and where the starting are kind of pointing out at revisions. And we're back talking about Norway's gambling regime. Ted, I'm going to take it to you. There's concerns about exposure. There's concerns about the actual protection of consumers. But what do you think the critics of Norway's gambling regime?
type of framework do they want to implement? mean, will it mirror Finland? Will it mean Denmark or Sweden?
It's hard to say. think different stakeholders want different things. Obviously, as Victor talked about earlier, there's a lot of different organizations that are calling for reform in Norway. Each one's for kind of different reasons. The IBIA obviously wants to see things could be better for the integrity element and player protection sort of element of it by having licensed companies that will be required to adhere to whatever standards Norway has.
The EGBA has a similar perspective. I think the EGBA would like to see just more liberal gaming markets in general and help with the growth of the industry and the development of the industry. I think most people would probably look to Denmark and Sweden as being the best examples of the kind of model to follow really, where the state operators continue to have a role but will go up against the likes of
Yeah, you're Leo Vegas' and NYX spec and Unibet and so on. And it'd be a competitive process, almost as if like in the UK, the national lottery happened to offer sports betting. But we're still going up against, you your bet 365, William Hill, the Entain brands, Paddy Power and so on. Finland, I don't know if we can really say for sure that anyone wants it to go in the direction of Finland, because of course, Finland hasn't liberalised its market yet either.
Speaker 1 (12:38.382)
So I think at the moment the best case points are looking at the other already liberalised Nordic markets, Sweden and Denmark, and monitoring the developments in Finland closely. I mean, by the looks of things in Finland, we're not going to get a liberal multi-licence market there until at least 2026, if not 2027, depending on when this legislation has only just been launched to Parliament last week, depending when that gets approved. So obviously it's a bit of a waiting game for that.
And from what we know, think from our member is the, the finished system is the Vyckhouse will continue to be the operator of lotteries and gaming products and the multi licenses will be for sports betting only from our member anyway, from when I read about this a while ago. I'm not sure if that situation's changed, but yeah, I feel like a lot of the operators obviously wouldn't want to see that sort of system. will want the gaming elements to be closed off to them. So yeah, I think.
I think the other Nordic markets are probably the best blueprint that people are hoping for. Well, certainly the operators and suppliers will be hoping for.
Victor, mean, Norse tipping does carry a lot of political weight. It's raised a lot of money for good causes. And surely it's back his view that it is the most effective social state, it is effective to have a social state monopoly.
Yeah, yeah, and you're talking about backers. are not few in numbers. There are actually a lot of organizations that came in support for North Clipping recently. 74 in total wrote a letter to the parliament to stop this, know, stop this push, political push for the abolishment of North Clipping.
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most of them sports organizations. But a recent media campaign was also launched from out of four Norwegian constituencies that combined have a total of 1.1 million populations. All of them are saying that they approve of North Tipping. They're happy with how it's worked out so far across all these four constituencies in 2024, a total of
53.9 million pounds were handed down in social contributions. The supporters are actually afraid that if the market opens up, this level of support will significantly slow down and they also put across the point of problem gambling. It's interesting how this
this key takeaway is present in both opinions. The private sector says we will reduce problem gambling rates by unifying because problem gambling in Norway is quite substantial. think it's at the highest level across the Nordics countries. The opposite side, the one that wants to retain the monopoly level says, the monopoly system says that problem gambling will
increase if foreign companies are allowed on the market. the support for either point is really substantial on both sides and it's really interesting to see how it develops. There's no guarantees for anything. For example, North Stippen was in trouble a few years back when it was fined
for player protection failures. But again, multi-licensing does not guarantee that this will stop because as we can remember, just recently the regulator itself in Romania was also found of significant failings, missing 900 million euros in tax. So yeah, there's plenty of strong points to be considered across both sides.
Speaker 3 (16:48.634)
Okay, but look, we can agree that there's no perfect regime and there's no Grand Passe to stop crime online, it's just gambling. Fine. But let's look at Norway and as a nation, what are the political pressures for Norway to just review its gambling regime? And you talked about the EGBA wanting to make recommendations, but Norway is not part of the EU, it stands alone, it's part of the EEA.
And is there actually like any external pressure for them to change or to adopt new models?
It's a good question, Ted. I'd say no, I mean, at the moment, I'd say most of it is internal. the conversations we've seen, the most significant ones are obviously as Victor's mapped out between the Labour government and the Conservative opposition and different sports stakeholders in Norway. Like you said as well, Ted, the state bags operators have a lot of political power.
and influence as they do in lots of other countries, as national lotteries do in the UK and Ireland and other European nations. The sports organisations have quite a reasonable concern, I think, regarding the potential cut off of funds a multi-licence market would have. And sports in any country is quite powerful social and political influence.
Yeah, but not being in the EU, the European Union won't have too much of an impact on any developments in Norway regarding gambling, any measures that the EU might be trying to roll out nationwide to do with gambling, internationally, sorry, to do with gambling regulation. The EGPA though, of course, I know it's a pan-European body, but it does have influence beyond the EU. I've seen like, Europe isn't just limited to the EU.
Speaker 1 (18:39.054)
Its members will be keen to see developments in Norway to see market liberalization and reform. So the influence of EGVA can't be ruled out. And it's been very vocal over the past few years about wanting to see changes in Norway, how it believes that the monopoly system is detrimental to both the Norwegian industry as customers and the international industry. So I think that will probably be the most significant external stakeholder, as you know, with TED.
Yeah, no, no, good. I mean, good insights there. So Victor, I'm going to let you kind of pay us out. Please kind of tell our audiences how you will be following this story and tracking and what to expect from Norway.
the moment, there's the conservative annual convention going on. It started on the 28th of March. think the last session concluded yesterday. So they voted actually on this proposition to abolish the monopoly system. The proposition was neither accepted nor rejected. If you go onto the Norway Conservatives website, it's...
up for further discussion. So obviously they are waiting out. It's going to be discussed on a later basis and Norway has the luxury to wait out. It's in a really favorable spot to actually make an informed decision, it may be. Like Ted said, we know it can look at Denmark, it can look at Sweden, it can even wait a few more years to see how Finland develops.
So whatever decision the political elite in Norway takes, it's gonna be a well informed one because they currently have the luxury to do so.
Speaker 3 (20:29.24)
So thank you. Lots of twists and turns to cover and to our audiences, please stay tuned to SBC News. This is Our Gaming Daily. Thank you.