A coalition of 13 leading gambling operators in the Swedish market has taken a unified stand against a controversial tax proposal put forward by horse racing operator ATG.
In a collective letter issued by the trade association Branschföreningen för Onlinespel (BOS), executives including Stella David of Entain, Pontus Lindwall of Betsson Group, and Per Widerström of evoke urged the government to reject ATG’s call for a restructuring of the national gambling tax framework.
The conflict stems from ATG’s lobbying efforts to reduce the tax on horse racing betting to 18 percent, a move the operator suggests offsetting by raising the general gambling tax, which applies to online casinos, to 26 percent. ATG’s argument rests on the premise that online casino products carry higher risks and that revenue from horse betting is vital for funding the equestrian sector.
However, the BOS coalition warns that such a shift could have severe consequences for market stability and consumer safety.
The core of their argument revolves around “channelization”—the rate at which players choose licensed, regulated operators over unlicensed offshore sites. Gustaf Hoffstedt, Secretary General of BOS, highlighted the disparity in current channelization rates between the two verticals. “Horse betting has a channelisation rate of between 98-99 per cent,” Hoffstedt noted, whereas “online casino, according to the most optimistic estimates, has a channelisation rate of between 72-82 per cent.”
The fear is that increasing the tax burden on the already struggling online casino sector will only drive more players to the black market. “The higher the tax, the greater the risk that the consumer will choose unlicensed gambling, where neither gambling tax nor consumer protection exists,” Hoffstedt explained. He described the logic of lowering taxes for a high-channelization sector while raising them for a low-channelization one as “completely incomprehensible,” particularly “for those who prioritize consumer protection.”
The letter also pointed out that the industry is already grappling with a recent tax hike from 18 to 22 percent. Furthermore, BOS reminded stakeholders that ATG has already benefited significantly from past reforms. “It can be recalled in this context that until the reregulation of the gambling market in 2019, ATG paid 35 per cent tax on its gambling surplus,” Hoffstedt stated, adding that the company has “therefore de facto already received a significant tax reduction with the reform.”
