Sweden: PlayOJO Paradise Hotel Sponsorship

The Sponsorship, Dated

SkillOnNet, the platform company behind PlayOJO, published the announcement on its own corporate site under the date 10 September 2018, with the release itself dated 3 September 2018. It states: "PlayOJO, which is powered by the SkillOnNet platform, will sponsor all 30 episodes of the hit TV show which will be broadcast on TV3 from 3rd September." The broadcaster's side is quoted in the same release, where "Mats Nyman, VP FTV at Nordic Entertainment Group in Sweden" is given as saying "Paradise Hotel is one of our most popular shows and has a really strong fanbase." — Nordic Entertainment Group being the owner of TV3 in Sweden. The audience figure in circulation is the operator's own: SkillOnNet wrote that "The show attracts an audience in excess of 400,000 viewers per episode and has seen ratings increase 33% year on year." and no independent audience measurement was located, so the number is reported here as the company's claim rather than as a fact.

That is the whole of what a primary source records about this sponsorship. No Swedish public body publishes anything about it, PlayOJO's own site could not be read from outside its licensed markets, and the broadcaster's own pages for the 2018 season were not found. A reader should treat this page as a record of one operator's marketing decision in September 2018, not as information about the Swedish market.

In September 2018 Sweden Had No Online Casino Licence to Hold

This matters because an earlier version of this article said PlayOJO had earned a Swedish licence in January 2018. The Swedish Gambling Act (spellag 2018:1138) says of itself: "Denna lag träder i kraft den 1 januari 2019." Its transitional provision explains how early applications were handled: "Lagen får tillämpas före ikraftträdandet på ansökningar om licens som lämnas in till Lotteriinspektionen efter den 1 augusti 2018 och som avser tid efter den 1 januari 2019." So licence applications opened on 1 August 2018 and licences took effect from 1 January 2019.

SkillOnNet's own releases line up with that. On 5 September 2018 it announced that the company "has submitted its application for a licence in Sweden as it looks to be among the first to launch when the market regulates on January 1st 2019." — two days after the Paradise Hotel sponsorship began. The same release says "PlayOJO launched to players in Sweden in January, and has quickly become one of the market-leading with a major TV and offline presence.", and the sponsorship release says, in the operator's own promotional terms, "The igaming site first entered the Swedish market in January this year, launching with the support of a multi-million SEK TV and online advertising campaign that educated players about PlayOJO’s ethos – to be a fair online casino that gives players more control over their money." In other words, PlayOJO began serving Swedish players in January 2018 and applied for a Swedish licence in September 2018. There was no Swedish online casino licence in existence in January 2018 for anyone to hold. The same release dates the brand's UK launch: "PlayOJO launched in the UK in February 2017, and has already taken the market by storm with its “for the players” stance."

Sweden's Marketing and Sponsorship Rules Post-Date This Article

The Act that took effect on 1 January 2019 governs marketing directly, and a television sponsorship is marketing. The core duty is one sentence: "Vid marknadsföring av spel till konsumenter ska måttfullhet iakttas." — moderation must be observed in marketing gambling to consumers. The same section continues: "Marknadsföringen får inte riktas särskilt till personer under 18 år." — marketing must not be directed particularly at people under 18. Commercial messages carry an information duty: "Kommersiella meddelanden om spel ska innehålla tydlig information om lägsta ålder för att få spela." — a commercial message about gambling must carry clear information about the minimum age for playing. There is a sponsorship provision of its own: "När en licenshavare ingår avtal om sponsring ska den säkerställa att dess logotyper samt namn på spelprodukter eller speltjänster inte förekommer på produkter som är avsedda att användas av personer under 18 år." — a licence holder entering a sponsorship agreement must make sure its logos, and the names of its gambling products and services, do not appear on products intended for use by people under 18. And broadcast advertising for an operator without a Swedish licence is prohibited outright: "Reklam för spel som tillhandahålls av någon som saknar nödvändig licens enligt denna lag får inte förekomma i tv- sändningar, beställ-tv, sökbar text-tv eller ljudradiosändningar." — no such advertising in television broadcasts, on-demand television, searchable teletext or radio. The same section extends to video-sharing platforms: "En leverantör av en videodelningsplattform får inte tillhandahålla sådan reklam före, under eller efter användargenererade videor eller tv-program på plattformen." — a video-sharing platform provider may not carry it before, during or after user-generated videos or television programmes. The Act also sets its own territorial reach: "Lagen ska tillämpas på spel som tillhandahålls i Sverige, om inte annat följer av 3, 4 eller 5 §." — the Act applies to gambling provided in Sweden, except as sections 3, 4 and 5 provide otherwise. The Swedish text is the authoritative version; the English after each quotation is a rendering of it.

None of that was in force when the Paradise Hotel deal was struck. Swedish gambling marketing in September 2018 sat under general marketing law; the moderation standard, the age-information duty, the sponsorship clause and the broadcast prohibition all began on 1 January 2019. A sponsorship of this shape, taken by an operator that did not yet hold a Swedish licence, could not be repeated on the same terms afterwards.

Who Regulates It, and Where the Register Is

The regulator describes itself as follows: "Spelinspektionen är den myndighet som säkerställer att lotterier, kasinospel och annan spelverksamhet i Sverige utövas lagligt, säkert och tillförlitligt." Its starting point for the whole framework is stated plainly: "En utgångspunkt i den svenska spelregleringen är att överdrivet spelande ska motverkas." Licence holders are listed publicly — "I licensregistret finns alla aktörer som har giltig licens eller tillstånd." — and the authority also sets out its enforcement role against unlicensed supply: "One of our main tasks is to reduce the number of illegal lotteries and gambling operations." and "The Gambling Authority may also issue bans in order to reduce illegal gambling and lotteries." Where the authority publishes the Act in English it marks the translation as non-official: "Unofficial translation, in case of any discrepancies between the English version and the original Swedish version the latter will prevail." The quotations from the Act above are therefore taken from the Swedish text published by the Riksdag.

A Further Licence Requirement Arrived in 2023

The framework has moved again since the article. SkillOnNet announced on 22 March 2023 that "Legislation approved by the Swedish government late last year requires not just online gaming operators but also software suppliers to be licensed in the country as of July 1." and that "Swedish gaming regulator Spelinspektionen confirmed Monday that of 60 applications it had received, the Malta-based company was among the first three to be licensed." So from 1 July 2023 the software behind a Swedish-facing casino needed its own Swedish permit, in addition to the operator licence that did not exist at all when this sponsorship was announced.

How to Read This Page Now

The event is real and dated: a 2018 television sponsorship, recorded only by the platform company that arranged it. Everything about the regulatory setting around it has changed since — licences from 1 January 2019, a statutory moderation standard and sponsorship clause from the same date, and a separate software permit from 1 July 2023. Whether PlayOJO or SkillOnNet holds a current Swedish licence is a question for Spelinspektionen's own licence register rather than for a 2018 news post.