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Betfair, a British sports betting operator, has received a SEK 4m ($389,194) penalty notice from the Swedish Gambling Authority (Spelinspektionen) for allowing customers to bet on the Under-21 (U21) Allsvenskan football league.
According to the Gambling Authority, this has been forbidden since the regulation came into effect in 2021.
An investigation was launched on 31 January 2023 to confirm that Betfair was allowing unauthorised bets.
This found that Betfair allowed betting to take place on a total of 148 matches from the U21 league between 2021 and 2022.
The Gambling Authority confirmed records that 224 Swedish customers had created a total of SEK 1.1m unauthorised bets on these games.
In a statement, Betfair admitted that the bets were allowed to take place due to a lack of routine.
Betfair explained that when wagering objects need to be manually filtered out in cases like this, it creates an opportunity for mistakes.
In response, Betfair has removed any ability for betting on U21 teams to take place on any of its sites live in Sweden.
Additionally, the operator has blocked betting for all Swedish football teams, with the exception of the two highest leagues.
While the Gambling Authority has acknowledged that Betfair has taken measures to ensure this violation will not happen again, it also states that Betfair must pay the penalty fees.
Operators may be able to get the fee waivered in certain conditions, however, an assessment found that this infringement from Betfair was both too large to excuse and had been going ongoing for a sustained period.
