Image credit: Illustration by iGamingNews Editorial Desk. Not a depiction of Spelinspektionen or Hillside premises or personnel.
The Court of Appeal in Jönköping has upheld Spelinspektionen's penalties against the two Swedish subsidiaries of Hillside, the parent of bet365: a SEK 40 million fine on Hillside (Sports) and SEK 4 million on Hillside (Gaming).
Both penalties were cut from Spelinspektionen's original proposals. The Sports fine had been set at SEK 65 million, and the Linköping administrative court made the reduction that the appeal court has now left in place. The warnings were reaffirmed, and the ruling was reported on 15 October.
The court found two failures between 2019 and 2022:
- Duty of care: Hillside relied too heavily on automated messages, escalated to manual review too slowly and delayed access restrictions while play remained risky. In some cases the restrictions took almost a month.
- Deposit limits: From 1 January 2019 to 18 April 2022, a "no limit" deposit setting let customers skip the legal requirement to set daily, weekly and monthly limits. A SEK 500 million technical ceiling existed, but it was not communicated or enforced as a limit.
The review examined the 10 highest-loss players from 17 October to 17 December 2021.
The Dutch regulator KSA reached a related finding in its own binding order against Hillside, saying the group "did not adequately" respond to signals that players may no longer be able to afford their gambling.
Neither Spelinspektionen nor Hillside was quoted directly in the reporting reviewed, and it is not yet clear whether Hillside will take the case further.
For other Swedish licensees, the court's reasoning makes two points clear: leaning on automated messages is not enough on its own, and a no-limit deposit setting does not meet the deposit-limit requirement. Sweden is also tightening the technical side of self-exclusion, as its real-time API rules show.