Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden have aligned to launch the joint research project on gambling, gathering comparable knowledge about gambling habits and gambling problems in the region.
It marks a key move from the Nordic countries as they seek to learn lessons from each other in a bid to strengthen each market’s understanding of gambling habits and subsequently bolster player safeguards.
Approximately 30,000 randomly selected people, aged 18 to 80, from each country will participate in the study across the Nordic region, with invitations sent by post and reminders sent via Kivra.
The survey is being conducted in collaboration with the Swedish Gambling Authority (Spelinspektionen), Danish Gambling Authority (Spillemyndigheden), Aalborg University, Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, University of Iceland, Norwegian Gambling and Foundation Authority (Lotteritilsynet) and the University of Bergen.
Maria Vinberg, Investigator at Spelinspektionen, commented: “The study will provide a basis for assessing gambling and gambling problems in the Nordic countries.
It will be exciting to compare the results with previous Swedish data and with the rest of the Nordic countries, especially since so few similar joint surveys have been conducted in Europe.”
To be answered digitally, the study questions will cover topics such as gambling, computer games and problems related to gambling.
The Pan-Nordic Gambling Study’s results will be published in the spring next year, with a selection of the results reported in the Swedish Public Health Agency’s statistical database, Folkhälsodata, and on the knowledge website spelprevention.
Ombudsman criticism
However, the study comes as Spelinspektionen receives criticism from the Swedish Ombudsman.
On its website, the Swedish authority stated that the Ombudsman criticised Spelinspektionen for not previously being able to exclude individuals from gambling without electronic identification.
In the summer of 2024, a person requested to be banned from gambling without electronic identification, but it took approximately a month for the person’s request to be processed by Spelinspektionen.
The Swedish authority said in a statement that Spelpaus, its self-exclusion service, was built “on the basic idea that the Swedish Gambling Authority would not handle any suspensions manually”, and so the person would go onto the website and confirm their exclusion with an electronic ID.
Spelinspektionen said: “Until the summer of 2024, it was not possible to exclude oneself from gambling without an e-ID. After the court found in the spring of 2024 that there were no formal requirements for reporting, the Swedish Gambling Authority began work on enabling manual handling of suspensions in the system.”
However, the Ombudsman responded that the Swedish authority “cannot escape criticism because there was no alternative to banning” when the request was made and that “the information about why the processing was delayed should have been better”.
