Norway goes heavy on unlicensed operators

Several political parties came together in Norway to cease the growth of foreign operators by means of a new mandate that's intended to pressure the Norwegian Parliament and the Cultural Committee of Storting. The four parties comprising this joint endeavor are Norway’s Labour, Socialist Left, Christian Peoples and Centrist Party. The newly formed alliance requests that the aforementioned regulatory bodies impose stricter measures to prevent casino players from interacting in any way with foreign operators.

The alliance expects the mandate to be implemented as quickly as possible and according to the specifics of it, it seems that the toll on foreign online casinos is going to be quite heavy. In particular, the 4 parties have asked for:

• The blocking of IP addresses of any betting sites outside of Norway, so that Norwegians cannot access these sites at all.
• Assigning Lotteri og Stiftelsestilsynet, the official Norwegian regulator, with the task of overseeing all transactions with foreign bookmakers and casinos to ensure that no dealings with them exist.
• Preventing any advertising campaigns for foreign operators from happening in the first place.
• Empowering Lotteri og Stiftelsestilsynet to issue fines to foreign betting and casino brands that refuse to conform to the new framework.

The 4 joint political forces stated that they requested this new code of conduct with the intent of increasing player protection and discouraging them from playing with non-conformists. The suggested framework is also expected to upgrade Norsk Tipping's, one of two licensed operators in Norway, position in the market.