On Thursday, the Swedish Administrative Court of Appeal upheld rulings against Bet365's parent company, Hillside, affirming that it had violated player protection obligations outlined in Swedish gambling laws.
The court found that Hillside's two subsidiaries, Hillside (Gaming) and Hillside (Sports), failed in their duty of care to players between 2019 and 2022 by not adhering to mandatory deposit limit regulations. Consequently, it reaffirmed earlier warnings and imposed financial penalties: SEK4 million ($401,010) on the gaming division and SEK40 million on the sports betting segment.
The court sided with Sweden's gambling authority, agreeing that the operator did not act swiftly or effectively enough when customers displayed signs of problematic gambling. The Swedish Gaming Act requires license holders to continuously monitor player behavior and intervene to prevent harm.
Evidence indicated that Hillside relied too heavily on automated systems, such as pop-ups and email reminders, and was slow to escalate cases to manual reviews. There were also delays in enforcing access restrictions despite repeated instances of risky player behavior.
From January 1, 2019, to April 18, 2022, Hillside's platform allowed customers to set a "no limit" deposit option, effectively circumventing the legal requirement that players actively choose a specified deposit limit for daily, weekly, and monthly transactions. Despite a theoretical cap of SEK500 million, this was not presented or enforced as an active limit, violating Swedish law.
Both the Administrative Court in Linköping and the Administrative Court of Appeal in Jönköping deemed the combination of warnings and financial penalties appropriate. The initial penalty for the gaming arm was reduced but confirmed at SEK4 million, while the fine for the sports betting operations, initially set at SEK65 million, was lowered to SEK40 million.
Spelinspektionen analyzed the ten highest-loss players over a two-month span (October 17 to December 17, 2021) and conducted in-depth reviews on five of these accounts. All revealed frequent deposits and losses but received late and inconsistent responses from Hillside despite triggering its internal risk detection system. The operator depended too much on automated messages without timely manual intervention. In some cases, it almost took a month to implement stricter restrictions when players continued to exhibit risky behavior.
Hillside argued that its risk detection system was effective and claimed that the sample analyzed was too small to reflect its overall clientele. It also pointed out the regulatory guidance's ambiguity regarding intervention timing and stated that their "no limit" option conformed to previous regulations. However, the courts found these arguments lacking and insufficient to override the documented breaches.
Spelinspektionen noted that the monitored players experienced ongoing losses despite the operator's primarily informational interventions. The regulator characterized Hillside's failure to enforce mandatory deposit limits as part of a long-standing systemic issue incompatible with statutory requirements.
This is not the first time Hillside's player protection measures have faced scrutiny. Earlier this year, the Dutch gambling regulator, Kansspelautoriteit (KSA), issued a binding order against Hillside for not meeting certain duty of care responsibilities. The KSA stated that Hillside did not adequately act on signals indicating that players might be gambling beyond their means, with the violations noted during the period from December 6, 2024, to June 6, 2025, highlighting failures to implement appropriate interventions.
