Sweden bans Duel.com for operating without a license

Sweden's gambling regulator Spelinspektionen has immediately banned Immortal Snail LLC, the company behind offshore betting site Duel.com. The regulator said the company targeted Swedish players without the required local license and took this step to protect consumers.

According to the regulator, the company refused to remove Swedish-language content from its platform. The site offers a Swedish language option and allows Swedish krona (SEK) to be selected as the payment currency. A covert test purchase by the regulator produced no result, but no evidence was found that Swedish users were being blocked from opening accounts.

The company said it plans to block access from Sweden using IP blocking. Spelinspektionen, however, said it has seen no additional measure that would prevent Swedes from reaching the site by other means, and that even the limited measures the company described have not been fully implemented. The company argued that Swedish is an international language and claimed it cannot control whether payments are made in SEK. However, when the site was checked while this story was being written, the Swedish option was no longer available on Duel.com.

It is unclear whether the ban can be enforced. Duel.com appears to be registered at an address in Charlestown, Nevis, and states that it holds an Anjouan license (No. ALSI-202411026-FI1) which it says was issued by the Union of the Comoros. About a month ago, the site also drew attention over claims involving Ossi Ketola, described as the founder of X, that he bribed employees and manipulated account suspensions on the social media platform.

The same regulator also imposed a heavy penalty on Bet365 in Sweden. Bet365 was required to pay a fine of 44 million SEK (about 4.5 million US dollars) for failing to comply with the country's licensing rules.