Spelinspektionen – Sweden’s gambling inspectorate has reprimanded Betsson AB for breaching its penalty-based betting market rules on an Allsvenskan football match. 

The offence relates to a tie played on 20 May 2021, between Malmö FF and Elfsborg FC, in which the inspectorate was ‘tipped-off’ that Betsson had offered markets violating Spelinspektionen integrity rules.

2020 Gambling Act amendments saw Spelinspektionen ban licensed bookmakers from offering “markets on expulsions, penalties, and yellow cards in football”. The measure was introduced as an integrity safeguard protecting Swedish lower and amateur football leagues from being targets of sports corruption.

Responding to its reprimand, Betsson admitted that it had taken approximately SEK 3,000 (€300) in wagers breaching market rules.  

Betsson underlined that it had modified its sportsbook platform to remove all conflicting markets, however, the discrepancy had been a result of a third-party supplier offering yellow card and penalty markets as part of a ‘combination game’ (accumulator service) – that Betsson was not in charge of.

The markets were declared void and Betsson immediately paid out customers wagering stakes. In addition, the bookmaker instructed its third-party supplier to remove all conflicting markets for its service to avoid future discrepancies.

Passing its judgement, Spelinspektionen deemed that Betsson had acted sufficiently enough to ensure that penalty markets were no longer available to customers – actions that saw bookmaker reprimanded but not financially penalised by the inspectorate.

“The provisions on the prohibition of betting on penalties for breaches of the rules exist aims to counteract the manipulation of results in sport and to protect individuals athletes from being exposed to undue influence,” – read a Spelinspektionen judgement

“The Inspectorate has published questions and answers about the regulations on the external website and there expressed that in order to determine what is a violation of the rules that licensees should based on the rules of each sport.”