This past weekend a party conference was held in Gavle and the Moderate party voted to de-monopolize the country’s gambling industry. They also ruled to privatize Svenska Spel which is the country’s government-owned gaming company.
The Moderate party had originally decided not to privatize the gambling industry but they finally decided to follow the European Commission directives after hearing from Tomas Tobe MP. They now will allow free movement of European services within their country.
Tobe told the Moderate party that they must do away with the current monopoly and join Italy and England in regulation of the industry. Tobe said that money would be placed for gambling research and risk-minimization controls and this would balance a possible increase in gambling. Sweden’s government is made of the Moderate’s, the People’s Party, the Centre party and the Christian Democrats. The Christian Democrats are the only part of the government still against the privatization and regulation.
Tobe stated also that the government will work with the companies to establish an effective method of taxation. This would be instead of a percentage of turnover based approach. “By December 2008, an in-depth report on the gambling market will be released following an investigation by Jan Nyr’n, legal counsel of the police authority, but the party congress did not want to wait for this and voted for change to take place more rapidly”, he said.
The only five casinos in Sweden are owned by Svenska Spel. They made over 500 million Euros last year in profits and is worth in the billions. If the monopoly situation was changed there would be more competition for the company and could also see foreign operators.
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