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Closing time? Sweden may close Its last land-based casino
A plan to close Sweden’s final land-based casino is being considered by the government.
By taking this action, state-owned businesses that operate casinos across the nation would essentially cease operations.
Since 1994, only Casino Cosmopol—a division of the state-owned operator Svenska Spel—has been able to offer land–based gambling in Sweden. Four locations were initially run by Casino Cosmopol: Sundsvall, Gothenburg, Malmö, and Stockholm. But over time, the other three locations have closed owing to a lack of profitability, leaving only the Stockholm casino open.
The casinos in Gothenburg and Malmö, which were among the most recently closed, were found to be unprofitable in an internal Svenska Spel investigation. The financial report for December 2023 from Spelinspektionen provided additional proof of this decline in profits. According to the survey, turnover at state-run casinos fell by 11.4 percent, with Svenska Spel’s Casino Cosmopol leading the way. In addition, state-owned casino games’ net revenue in 2023 dropped significantly from SEK 139 million in 2022 to SEK 92 million, a 33.8 percent year-over-year decline.
Sweden’s Minister for Financial Markets, Niklas Wykman, recognized the underwhelming financial performance and said in an interview with Aftonbladet that running a casino shouldn’t be a politically mandated duty for a state–owned company. Svenska Spel issued a press release in response to the government’s position, agreeing that operating Casino Cosmopol is no longer considered profitable.
The chief executive officer of Casino Cosmopol, Ola Enguist, said that the closing of the last casino would be a bittersweet event, marking the end of an era.
If approved, the proposal, which seeks to deny state-owned companies the license to operate casinos, is anticipated to go into effect no earlier than January 2026. The decision could mean the end of state-run casino gaming in Sweden and represents a dramatic change in the country’s attitude toward land-based gambling.
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