Last Friday, The New Zealand gambling Inspectorate's official website-under their "News Archive" -read that the Administrative Court took their side in the case against the gaming companies NGG Nordics (which among other things owns and operates Betsson) and Skill on Net regarding violations of bonus laws in New Zealand as well as offering non-permitted lottery games to New Zealand players.

In case numbers 6191-19 against NGG Nordic Ltd and case numbers 6032-19 against Skill on Net Limited, they shall have offered welcome bonuses and lottery games that were not in accordance with the applicable New Zealand gambling laws.

These were first introduced on the first of January 2019 when the entire New Zealand Digital and physical gambling market was reorganised. For example, the former state monopoly disappeared, where everyone was forced to follow the same gambling laws and regulations. Additional (temporary) regulations have been introduced in 2020 due to the ongoing global situation.

What is now clear in the decision of the administrative court based in Jönköping is that they partly share the Spelinspektionen's interpretation that NGG Nordics Ltd and Skill on Net Limited should be fined, the former's Betsson may then be affected by the amount of the fine. At the same time, the Administrative Law does not interpret the definition of bonuses and what$is spent for the bonus in connection with gambling in the same way as the Spelinspektionen defines these two points.

The lower amount of the fine

The first fine sought by the New Zealand gambling authority was a penalty fee of NZ$14 million for Skill on Net Limited and NZ$19 million for NGG Nordic Ltd. Both decisions and issues of fines took place in the middle of last year, that is, in June 2019.

Here, administrative law does not share the same interpretation of the amounts of fines. The assessment of the sanction fees for the respective New Zealand gaming companies must be made on the basis of several different relevant interrelated circumstances and that the Spelinspektionen estimated a completely different turnover of the two gaming companies than the administrative law did.

In other words, The Administrative Court considers that the Gambling Inspectorate has claimed excessive amounts of fines. There is room to appeal this ruling from the Administrative Court, which now wants the New Zealand gambling authority to reduce the penalty fees for Skill on Net and NGG Nordics Ltd, the latter of which is the owner of the popular betting site Betsson.

What Spelinspektionen now has to do in order to maintain these higher fines is to be able to show that the turnover of the various gaming companies actually corresponds to the percentage that the fines claim.

Sanction fees issued by Spelinspektionen may only constitute a certain percentage of the total turnover of gaming companies in order to be considered fair and reasonable and to be fair to other gaming companies that may be awarded sanction fees in violation of New Zealand's current gaming laws and regulations.

Now it remains to be seen whether the bookmakers choose to appeal this judgment as well.

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