Since May, 2008 Betsson's betting shop at Götgatan in Stockholm has been a natural meeting point for people interested in sports and gambling. Five years later Betsson has decided to shut down Sweden’s most well-known betting shop – once opened to give Swedish players freedom of choice, and to test the conformity of Swedish gaming legislation to European Union law.
‘Our customers now have their betting shop at home. As we have reached our goals with the physical shop we now choose to put full focus on our mobile products, which have made astonishing progress this year’ says Magnus Silfverberg, CEO of Betsson AB.
When Betsson first opened the shop in May 2008 it was part of the aim to offer Swedish customers a freedom of choice within gambling, which lead to a drawn-out battle between Betsson and the Swedish authorities. Since then many more or less creative strategies have been used to try and force Betsson to shut down the betting shop, the latest tactic was prohibiting the use of table hockey games and pinball machines in the shop.
‘The betting shop has been important to the development for both Betsson and to the rest of the Swedish gambling market. As the issues around gambling legislations have been raised to the Supreme Court and have been proven to go against EU Law, we feel that the shop has now fulfilled its cause. We are proud of what we have achieved and that we have started a debate about the Swedish gambling legislation’, Magnus Silfverberg continues.
Betsson´s mobile efforts have already shown good results. During this year one of the Betsson AB subsidiaries has developed a new mobile site and in October they also launched one of the Nordic markets first Native mobile applications for gambling on Apple’s own platform. This led to a turnover more than four times higher than before on mobile gambling. ‘Everything that you can do in a betting shop, you can now do from a desktop, tablet or mobile. Our future is mobile, like our players’ says Magnus Silfverberg.
The shop will shut down on December 12th, 2013.
For more information, contact: Magnus Silfverberg, CEO and President, +46 (0)8 506 403 00, magnus.silfverberg@betssonab.com.
