Norway cracks down on gambling sites as 57 get blocked

In an attempt to ‘protect Norwegian players,’ the country’s gambling regulator has announced that 57 gambling websites are now blocked.

The Lotteritilsynet which is the Norwegian Gambling and Foundation Authority shared news of the crackdown on Tuesday (April 1).

Within the press release, it explains how this is the first round of blocking which will see the ‘DNS blocking’ technique used.

This is when a specified website becomes unreachable as a server is unable to find the corresponding IP address. Now, when people type in the name of a website that has been blocked, they will instead be directed to the site of the internet service provider rather than the one they were trying to reach.

Across the 57 now blocked websites, 23 companies have been found to be behind them. The identity of those impacted hasn’t yet been shared.

A lawyer at the Norwegian gambling authority, Silje Sægrov Amble, spoke out about the websites which are found to have been illegal:

“…These are the games that have the highest risk. They are designed to get you hooked and you can lose a lot of money in a short time.”

Norway continues to hold strict laws about gambling as this is largely illegal in the country.

It’s only through two state monopolies that such activities are legal. This includes Norsk Tipping and Norsk Rikstoto. Between them, these cover physical slots, lottery, online gambling, sports betting and horseracing.

With this being the case, the country remains one of the last Scandinavian countries to continue a gambling monopoly. It was in July 2024 when Finland moved to shake up its gambling market as plans were set out to end the monopoly by the end of 2026.

This then sparked the attention of Norway, as its conservative party called for an end to its current way of working within the gambling industry in its party manifesto.

Featured Image: AI-generated via Ideogram

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