Bet365 Loses Appeal but Keeps Its Licences in Sweden

bet365 has run out of road in Sweden. The administrative court of appeal, the Kammarrätten, has dismissed the appeals brought by the two companies behind bet365 in Sweden, leaving SEK 44 million in sanction fees standing alongside a formal warning for each one. Both companies keep their licences, so nothing changes for customers at the front end, but the decision closes a case that has moved through the Swedish courts since 2023.

The penalties fall on Hillside (Sports) ENC and Hillside (Gaming) ENC, the licensed entities that run the bet365 brand for Swedish players. The sports arm pays SEK 40 million and the gaming arm SEK 4 million. Spelinspektionen, the country’s gambling regulator, published the judgments on 14 October after the court signed them six days earlier.

The “No Limit” Option That Started It

Swedish law requires every player to set a deposit limit before they can fund an account. Between 1 January 2019 and 19 April 2022, bet365 customers in Sweden could sidestep that by picking an option labelled “no limit” during setup. Large numbers of accounts then ran for years without any figure the player had personally chosen, and Spelinspektionen treated the arrangement as a straight breach of the deposit-limit rules.

Hillside built its defence around a technical ceiling of SEK 500 million sitting behind the scenes. The regulator rejected that reasoning, and both courts agreed, because a cap nobody can see does nothing for the customer who was meant to choose it. A number buried in platform code carries no weight as a player-selected limit.

Duty of Care Failures Came With It

The deposit-limit finding arrived paired with a second one. Investigators concluded that the companies moved too slowly on customers displaying clear signs of excessive gambling, which breaches the duty of care every Swedish licensee carries as a condition of holding a licence. Hillside questioned how representative the sample of accounts was and defended the general effectiveness of its risk detection systems. Neither court accepted the argument.

The duty of care sits at the centre of Swedish gambling law, and it obliges operators to identify harm and act on it rather than wait for a player to ask for help. Courts have tested the standard repeatedly since the licensing system opened in 2019. This ruling adds bet365 to a growing list of operators in Sweden that have lost that fight.

Three Years of Appeals, One Answer

The case began with Spelinspektionen’s decision in April 2023, which set fees of SEK 65 million for the sports company and SEK 14 million for the gaming company. Both appealed. The Förvaltningsrätten upheld the findings but cut the amounts to SEK 40 million and SEK 4 million, partly because Swedish rules cap sanction fees at 10% of an operator’s annual turnover.

From there the companies went to the Kammarrätten and argued that the sanctions went well beyond what the breaches deserved. The court dismissed both appeals on 8 October. It agreed with the lower court that the violations were serious and that the penalties matched them. So the fight bet365 has waged in Sweden ends at SEK 44 million, a long way below the figure the regulator first reached for.

Why bet365 Keeps Its Licences in Sweden

Revocation was genuinely on the table here. Spelinspektionen described the failures as serious and systematic, the kind of language that opens the door to a full licence review rather than a fee. The regulator stopped short because the companies put corrective measures in place during and after the audit, and the courts found a warning plus a financial penalty proportionate to the conduct.

The warning stays on the licence record and raises the stakes for any future breach, because regulators weigh earlier sanctions when they decide how far to go the next time. bet365 carries on trading in Sweden with considerably less margin for error than it had before. Another finding of this kind would land the company in very different territory.

What It Changes for Players

Customers see no interruption at all. Accounts, bets and withdrawals continue as normal because the licences survived, and the deposit mechanics changed long ago, since the option at the heart of the case stopped being offered after April 2022. Anyone opening an account with bet365 in Sweden today has to enter a real figure before any money moves.

The wider effect lands on the rest of the market. Every licensee now has a court-tested definition of what a deposit limit has to be, and an invisible ceiling sitting in the platform code will not satisfy it. Operators running similar defaults have a clear reason to go and check them.

Where the Swedish Market Goes Next

Spelinspektionen has had a busy twelve months, with enforcement action against Betsson, ComeOn’s Snabbare, Mr Green, ATG and Kanon Gaming, plus a far more prescriptive responsible gambling framework now out for consultation. Licensees have objected loudly to that draft. Every judgment that backs the regulator’s reading of the Gambling Act makes the next decision harder to challenge.

The outcome for bet365 in Sweden reads as a split decision. The company absorbs a penalty it contested for three years and takes a warning onto its record, yet it walks away with both licences and its market position intact. Spelinspektionen, for its part, now has the principle it wanted settled, which may matter more to the regulator than the money ever did.