Niklas Wykman, Minister of Financial Markets in the Swedish Government, has been granted a new State Secretary, Erik Eldhagen. The name will contribute to the enhancement of the regulations of gambling and finances in the country. Eldhagen will take over today (1 December), and he will be in charge of issues concerning financial markets, gambling regulation, state property and the financing system of new nuclear power plant projects. Most recently, Eldhagen was the head of the international secretariat at the Riksbank. His experience includes a number of top positions in the Ministry of Finance and previous advisory experience in the World Bank.

This appointment follows the government’s increasing pace of changes to the Swedish Gambling Act of 2019, which both liberalised the regulated online market and has since been the factor of continuous reevaluation. The amendments are planned in line with suggestions by the inspector Marcus Isgren and seek to seal what the officials find to be a gaping loophole in the existing legislation. According to the current regulations, offshore casinos are considered to be directed to Sweden in case they are operated with the help of the Swedish language or payment means. This state of affairs is aimed to be eliminated by the government, something that has long been desired by the Swedish Gambling Authority, Spelinspektionen.

The regulators claim that this provision has handicapped them from taking any action against operators that attend to Swedish customers without fulfilling these particular requirements.

Tightening of Regulations Is Still Going on at Several Fronts

In October, the government also released legislation with a stricter ban on credit gambling, which is to be implemented by 1 April 2026. The measure displays long-term policy initiatives to mitigate the financial losses that occur with high-risk gambling behaviour. Leadership changes have also been experienced in Spelinspektionen. On 1 November, Johan Röhr replaced Camilla Rosenberg as acting director general after she had been in the top position of the authority continuously over the past eight years.

The change is experienced when the regulator is ready to have a new enforcement paradigm, which is informed by the political changes that are going to be made in the legislation. At the same time as Eldhagen was appointed, the Government appointed State Secretary Johan Almenberg as Director General of the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority. It is also his role today, which strengthens a larger reorganisation of the financial regulators in Sweden.