Unibet Sweden slashes legacy affiliate deals following licence update

Unibet will now operate under a new Swedish gaming licence issued to FDJ United, which submitted an application to the Swedish Gambling Authority (Spelinspektionen), as revealed in a blog post by CashLeads Media founder Johan Sunnanängs. French lottery and gambling giant FDJ acquired ex-Unibet owner Kindred Group in a €2.45bn deal last year.

The current licence held by Spooniker Ltd has expired with all associated player accounts permanently closed and remaining balances paid out automatically. Players can now create new accounts and claim welcome bonuses, Unibet Sweden confirmed in a Q&A. Moving forward, Unibet will continue in the market under the new licensee Kaprifol Services Limited. 

From the original statement issued to affiliates and shared by an anonymous source, iGBA can reveal that FDJ United required partners to have removed “all Unibet Sweden links, banners and reviews” by 23:59 CET, 23 October, after which “existing links will be disabled and will no longer track customers to your account”.

Affiliate activity will resume following a transition period on 24 November, when the programme will provide new tracking links, updated licence-compliant creatives and new welcome offers.

Explaining the changes, the company said it was “unable to migrate customer data or affiliate tagging from the current licence” due to regulatory requirements. In May 2025, Unibet Sweden’s previous legally licensed entity Spooniker was fined SEK10 million (£0.8 million/ $1 million) by Spelinspektionen, which claimed the brand had not “achieved sufficient customer due diligence” in assessing money laundering risk, following a separate SEK10.9 million fine from the regulator in 2022.

Unibet Sweden is one of the largest brands in the dot.se regulated market behind ex-trotting monopoly ATG and lottery monopoly Svenska Spel, with particular strength in the higher-margin online casino vertical. 

FDJ United also operates other brands in the Swedish market, including Maria Casino, Bingo.com, Otto Casino and Storspelare, all of which were recently under the Spooniker Ltd licence. On 16 September, the company announced that Otto Casino had received a new licence under Gullviva Services Limited, requiring players to register new gaming accounts. However, it noted that customers can continue using their existing accounts at Maria Casino, Storspelare and Bingo.com as usual. 

With Sweden the largest grey igaming market in the early adoptive Nordics region for many years ahead of its re-regulation in 2019, it provided a springboard to global scale for many of the world’s biggest listed affiliates that emerged there and in neigbouring countries.

These include the now defunct XLMedia, the European assets of which were acquired by fellow big-in-the-Nordics giant Gambling.com Group for $42.5m last year, as well as Better Collective, Gentoo Media, Raketech and Acroud. None have yet issued any update on the potential financial impacts of FDJ United being forced to de-tag all their players sent to Unibet Sweden on lifetime rev share deals under the old licence.

The move comes amid ongoing changes in Swedish gambling regulations. In September 2025, the Ministry of Finance published a review of the framework, recommending stricter measures to prevent unlicensed operators from targeting Swedish players.

iGBA has contacted FDJ United for comment.