Swedish horse racing operator ATG said the share of gambling taking place within Sweden’s licensed system edged higher in the fourth quarter of 2025, though the black market remains large.
In a report, the horse-racing and betting operator estimated channelisation at 73% to 84%, up from 69% to 82% a year earlier. That is still well short of the Swedish state’s long-standing target of 90% gambling within the regulated market. The company also estimated the unlicensed gambling at SEK 3.6bn (€330m) to SEK 7.3bn (€660m) in annual net revenue, or SEK 60bn (€5.5bn) to SEK 120bn (€11bn) in gross turnover.
The report said traffic from Sweden to unlicensed operators has increased tenfold since 2019, when the country opened its market to licensed private competition under a new gambling law. It also found that 14 of the 20 unlicensed sites with the highest Swedish traffic in the quarter used the same platform suppliers as licensed operators, while eight offered direct deposits and withdrawals from Swedish bank accounts using BankID. Five of the 20 appeared on the regulator’s prohibition list.
ATG’s chief analytics officer, Tobias Melin, said the figures showed only partial progress. “Channelisation is moving in the right direction, but there is still a long way to go to reach the state’s target. At the same time, we see how unlicensed sites use the same platforms, payment solutions and in some cases even remain available despite decisions by authorities. That shows the regulatory framework needs to be tightened in order to truly shut out the unlicensed operators.”
A familiar argument over how Sweden should regulate gambling
In Sweden, operators from different parts of the industry have developed sharply different views on what regulation should look like, and the channelisation rate has become one of the strongest arguments each side can claim in support of its case.
Online operators, represented by BOS, the Swedish Trade Association for Online Gambling, say higher taxes, tighter advertising rules and a less competitive licensed offer risk pushing more consumers towards offshore sites. ATG has argued for a different approach, saying gambling products should not be treated the same and that horse betting should face a lower effective tax burden than higher-risk online casino products.
That split has become one of the clearest fault lines in Sweden’s post-2019 gambling market.
BOS secretary general, Gustaf Hoffstedt, has argued that Sweden’s original legal framework made licensing “more or less voluntary” for some offshore operators, because companies could still take Swedish customers as long as they avoided obvious signs of targeting the country. In his view, enforcement matters, but it will not be enough on its own if licensed operators are left trying to compete with a less attractive product, fewer marketing tools and higher costs. “Channelisation is the mother of all other challenges. Without doubt, that is the most important challenge in Sweden and elsewhere,” Gustaf Hoffstedt told SiGMA News.
In Sweden, channelisation is not just a measure of market performance. It has become one of the main tests in Sweden’s wider argument over gambling policy: whether the answer lies in stricter enforcement, a more attractive legal market, or some uneasy combination of both.
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