Gambling in Norway has been a monopoly for quite a while now, but only in the last couple of years has the government taken some serious actions to push out unlicensed operators from the country. In this article, we will take a closer look at the measures that are being taken in order to secure the monopoly in Norway, and how do the users respond to such strictness.
How it began
It all started when in 2022 Norwegian authorities announced that they would impose daily fines on unlicensed gambling companies that continue targeting Norwegian players. That was the very first serious measure to attempt to remove unregulated betting companies from Norway, and it has proven to be quite effective. Some of the biggest bookmakers in the world, namely Bet354, LeoVegas, Bwin and others decided to cease their operations in Norway. Other betting sites in Norway removed Norwegian language and no longer accept Norwegian currency.
Restricted access
The next official measure was DNS blocking. DNS stands for “Domain Name System”. It is a system used to translate domain names into a numeric IP-address. In turn, DNS-blocking is a method used to restrict access to selected websites. And in this case, the government is using this method to prevent Norwegian users from entering betting sites that do not have license in Norway. Normally, DNS-blocking takes time to implement, and so far we see that only some of the unregulated gambling sites have been blocked. However, once the process is finished, this might be another effective way of keeping Norwegians from gambling on websites that are not approved by the government.
User response
The abovementioned methods have been backed up by multiple articles in media, that bring attention to the problem of unregulated gambling in Norway and strongly encourage players to only place bets on the state owned Norwegian gambling provider, NorskTipping. But what do the users think about such limitations? Here is an abstract from an interview with an experienced gambler from Oslo, where he shares his thoughts on the current situation, translated from Swedish:
“I don’t know anyone among Norwegian gamblers who would think that this system works. … Norsk tipping does not offer good odds and no bonuses whatsoever. People need alternatives, nobody wants to use with mediocre services.”
Disclaimer: The Affiverse website and other media channels may distribute content supplied by other information content providers such as non-staff contributors and commenters. Affiverse is not responsible for the statements and opinions expressed by those content providers. Responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of such content lies solely with those content providers and is not guaranteed by Affiverse.
