Sweden’s gambling regulator has brought restaurant casinos under the country’s anti-money-laundering regime, ending an exemption that had kept land-based commercial casino operators outside the rules. The change took effect on 1 September after Spelinspektionen decided the sector could no longer be treated as low risk.
As covered in the autumn, Spelinspektionen had already re-evaluated the sector in September 2025 and concluded that the risk of commercial land-based casino gaming being used for money laundering was no longer low. In its notice, the authority said the amendment to its regulations and general advice, SIFS 2019:2, was meant to strengthen the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing and to apply the framework more evenly on a risk-based basis.
The venues affected are restaurant casinos that offer lower-stakes roulette, card and dice games. Smaller restaurant casinos continued to operate after Casino Cosmopol in Stockholm closed in April 2025, and an impact assessment cited in the reporting said there were 12 licence holders across 425 gaming locations as of September 2025.
The regulator has also pointed to the way money moves through the sector. It said the use of cash, payment cards and Swish, and the ability to switch between payment methods, could make the business vulnerable to laundering.
Under the new regime, affected licence holders must carry out a general risk assessment, draw up procedures and guidelines, train staff, assess customer risk and maintain systems for ongoing monitoring. Spelinspektionen said the general risk assessment is the foundation for all other anti-money-laundering work, and that controls should be strongest where the customer, product or situation presents the greatest danger.
Operators must gather enough information to spot unusual or suspicious behaviour. If suspicious activity remains unexplained after review, it must be reported to Sweden’s Financial Intelligence Unit, and the authority said proof of money laundering or terrorist financing is not required before a report is filed. Businesses that do not know enough about a customer cannot open or continue the relationship, or carry out certain transactions.
The change does not mean restaurant casinos must formally register every player under the Gambling Act, because that exemption remains. But AML rules can still require customer identification and further information to assess the risk.
In its consultation response, the Swedish Public Health Agency backed the wider regulatory change and said the player-registration exemption should also be removed. It argued that registration would help people self-exclude and help licensees check exclusions, and said land-based casino gambling is linked to gambling problems and underage gambling, citing a 2021 study in which about 2% of 16- to 17-year-olds had gambled at land-based casinos and 29% of those had problem gambling.
