The recent tightening of gambling rules in Norway has led to some of the largest world-known brands being pushed out of the market. After “Lotteri- og stiftelsestilsynet” – a Norwegian authority for regulating gambling introduced daily fines for the companies that operate without a license, many brands left.
Brands That Have Left
Some of the brands that have left, include: Unibet, Bet 356, Folkeriket, LeoVegas, Betsson, ComeOn, Norges Spill, and many other recognisable brands. According to the Norwegian government, these measures have been taken in order to protect users from gambling addiction.
Maintained Interest
The data, collected by oddsbonuser.nu, a Norwegian affiliate marketing website for gambling, shows that after all the big operators have left, people in Norway still continue to search for them on Google. In January, almost 40 thousand users googled “Bet 365” after they failed to get directly to the bookmaker’s website, where many of them had an open account. Three times as many tried finding “Unibet”, a Malta based bookmaker that is especially popular in Northern Europe. “Folkeriket” and “LeoVegas” were both searched for 135 000 times, not mentioning multiple smaller searches regarding their bonuses for registration or even plain question of “what happened to …?” “Bettson” was searched a bit less than its competitors, but still an impressive amount of almost 50 thousand times in a country with a population of only five million people.
The reason for a maintained interest in those brands might be that their sudden disappearance came as a shock for many gamblers. One thing is clear: pushing all these betting providers out of the market did not stop people from searching for unlicensed bookmakers. This is proven by the fact that more and more people in Norway are looking for “new bookmakers” instead of turning to the official ones. The search for new betting sites has tripled since last year and still keeps a steady growth.
All the gathered data leads to a conclusion that Norwegian users are not satisfied with what the state controlled bookmakers have to offer, whether it’s low odds, poor user experience, lack of modern features, or all of the above. As a result, they keep looking for something better. Even if it means turning to unlicensed operators.
The Danger to Users
This situation attracts small and often newly created bookmakers to try their luck in Norway, as they are not as afraid for their reputation as big brands, and often are difficult to trace. However, by choosing them instead of the well-known brands, users are taking a risk.
What initially was introduced as a measure of protecting users turned into a way of putting them in even greater danger, since the only way to open an account on a gambling website is to connect a payment method and share personal information with the company. While well-established bookmakers can guarantee security for that delicate information, new small brands do not necessarily do that.
Hopefully, in the future we will see Norway introducing a licensing system for bookmakers which will open the doors for a healthy competition that benefits both the users and the companies that want to work safely and legally.
