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Danish Gambling Authority. The major licensing activities that are related to gambling operations in Denmark are under the control of the state-owned entity known as DanskeSpil, which has been in operation since 1948. The Danish Gambling Authority has also published a guide in relation to the use of sales promotion measures when providing betting and online casino. Advertising illegal gaming is considered a criminal act under Danish law and is punishable by fine or imprisonment. This applies to all parties who direct marketing towards the Danish market.

The Danish Gambling Authority was successful in an action against 16 websites that offers illegal gambling. This means that access to the websites is now blocked.

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For the sixth time, the Danish Gambling Authority has gone to court to have illegal websites blocked that, without a licence, offer betting, online casino and skin betting to Danes. Since 2012, the Danish Gambling Authority has blocked a total of 74 websites in this way. Efforts to find and block sites that offer gambling illegally are an important part of the Danish Gambling Authority’s work to ensure a fair and legal gambling market in Denmark.

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“We work to protect players against illegal gambling, and we also need to ensure that the operators who are licenced to offer gambling in Denmark can run their businesses under orderly conditions. That is why it is very important for us to clamp down on gambling offered without a licence”, says Director of the Danish Gambling Authority Morten Niels Jakobsen.

When the Danish Gambling Authority assesses that a website offers gambling aimed at Denmark without a licence and the site is not closed, the Danish Gambling Authority requests the internet service providers to block access to the site. The internet service providers would like the courts to decide that the offer of gambling is illegal, and the case is therefore brought before the district court. When the sites are blocked, they cannot be accessed from a Danish IP address.

All gambling operators with a Danish licence must have in an easily visible place the Danish Gambling Authority’s label on their website and on all marketing material. In this way, it is easy for players to check if a site is licenced to provide gambling in Denmark.

Seven of the websites offered skin betting in which the stakes are virtual items from video games rather than money. The Danish Gambling Authority is particularly concerned with skin betting, as this type of game especially attracts young people under 18, who, via video games, may be exposed to elements from gambling.

By the end of 2020, the Danish Gambling Authority publishes a study on young people’s relation to video gaming and gambling. The study is a part of the political agreement on new measures against compulsive gambling from June 2018.

Based on 2019 data from H2 Gambling Capital, Finland led the way among the countries listed, despite Veikkaus being the only legal operator, with an average spend of DKK3,148 per adult per year.
Italy and Ireland were second and third at DKK2,586 and DKK2,546 respectively. Denmark’s Nordic neighbours Iceland and Sweden, meanwhile, saw players wager an average of DKK2,216 and DKK2,163 respectively. Great Britain was also slightly ahead of Denmark with players spending DKK 2,116.
Only two countries in the sample saw players gamble less than in Denmark; Switzerland, with DKK2,051 per person and Greece, with DKK1,788.
Danish gamblers were also more likely to place sports bets rather than playing casino games or lotteries when compared with other countries. While the average European bettor in the sampled countries spent only 16.6% of gambling spend on betting, Danes spent 25.6%.
Meanwhile, 41.7% of Danish gambling spend went on casino games, compared to 45.4% in the rest of the countries sampled and 32.7% on lotteries compared to an average of 38.0%.
Spillemyndigheden said one reason for this may be that countries with online gambling monopolies, such as Finland, have less attractive sports betting offerings.
Yesterday, Spillemyndigheden reprimanded LeoVegas for failings in its customer verification processes after an internal investigation at the operator discovered that some temporary accounts were converted to permanent accounts without the necessary checks due to an error.
In addition, the regulator revealed yesterday that Spillehallen.dk fell foul of the authority a year ago for an inadequate anti-money laundering policy.