Sweden's administrative court of appeal dismissed complaints from Hillside, the parent company of Bet365, and left in place the regulator's findings that its subsidiaries breached player protection rules.
Hillside (Gaming) and Hillside (Sports) failed their duty of care to customers between 2019 and 2022 and broke mandatory deposit limit requirements. The court confirmed warnings for both units and fines of SEK 4m ($401,010) for the gaming business and SEK 40m for the sportsbook. The case rested on Spelinspektionen's analysis of ten players with the largest losses over two months, from 17 October to 17 December 2021. Five profiles were examined in detail. Those customers deposited and lost frequently, and Hillside's own early risk detection system picked it up, but the operator was slow to respond. It leaned on automated messages such as pop-ups, emails and spending reminders instead of moving to manual checks in time. In some instances tightening limits took almost a month.
From 1 January 2019 to 18 April 2022 the platform let players pick a 'no limit' setting, which bypassed the Swedish gambling act: a customer has to set a ceiling on daily, weekly and monthly deposits himself. A technical cap of SEK 500m was never shown to users and did not work as a limit. Both the Linköping court and the appeal instance in Jönköping judged the combination of warnings and fines proportionate. The gaming penalty was cut from the regulator's initial proposal and confirmed at SEK 4m, while the sports figure came down from SEK 65m to SEK 40m.
Hillside argued that its early detection system works overall, that the sample was small and that Swedish guidance sets no deadlines for intervention. The court rejected all three. It is not the first such case: earlier this year the Dutch regulator Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) issued a binding instruction covering 6 December 2024 to 6 June 2025, saying the operator responded inadequately to signals that players could no longer afford to bet. For anyone running a Swedish licence, the open question is how quickly an automated flag reaches a human.
