Norwegian gambling brands set up Industry Association of Online Gambling
Global gambling operators based in Norway now have their feet on the ground; it’s reported that a new professional association will be advocating the interests of online casino brands. It was January 2019 when reputable providers expressed their intention to create such an organization. The Board of Founders consists of such popular brands as Betsson and Charry AB - famous Swedish companies - along with two Malta-registered providers - Kindred Group and Gaming Innovation Group (GiG). The association is entitled 'Norwegian Industry Association of Online Gambling (NBO)'.
According to its founders, NBO is going to press Norway’s government to liberalize the legislation on foreign private investment. As for today, Norwegian authorities pursue the monopolistic policy which favors strongly such public companies as Norsk Rikstoto and Norsk Tipping. Norsk Rikstoto basically dominants the sports bets market while Norsk Tipping regulates the online gambling sphere.
NBO promotes legalizing investment coming from international casino operators with a good track record on the European market.
Interestingly, former Norsk Rikstoto's commercial director - Carl Fredrik Stenstrøm - is now the head of NBO. In fact, his job now is to discriminate against the company he used to work for.
According to Stenstrøm Norway’s government has to loosen up the investment regulation in favor of international gambling operators forsake better control of the market. He offers Denmark’s and Sweden’s legislation as a good example of liberalization: international investment accounts for additional income of the national budget.
Another key player in the NBO’s management is Rolf Sims - a former government official who was responsible for new legislation against private investment. He claims that the government is not going to change its position about the online gambling market. Such monopolistic policy leads to websites blocking which becomes the reason for customers’ disloyalty. The worst part of it is that operators are very scrupulous about their job while their clients still risk losing money because of accounts frozen.
Previously the founders of NBO made attempts to drag everybody’s attention to the problems on Norway’s casino market. In 2018 they issued a report on private investment; according to the document, private investment will facilitate competition and thus affect positively the quality of the services + make it easier for the government to regulate online gambling in Norway. Back in 2018, Norway’s government was outspokenly critical about the initiative of international casino operators. Some time later Kindred brought the case against NGA and Ministry for Culture to court. The complaint was about the unreasonable account freeze and the removal of the casino’s app from the App Store.
As for similar associations in other countries, there're multiple examples of their successful operation. Take Canada for instance. The organization is called The Canadian Gaming Association. CGA provides players with information about the most reliable online casinos and also guards the interests of online operators that accept CAD.