L&L Europe has been handed an SEK 600,000 ($59,600) fine by the Swedish Gambling Authority (SGA) for failing to stop self-excluded players from playing on its sites.

Players were able to play on L&L’s casino sites in Sweden, despite being registered to the country’s self-exclusion scheme, Spelpaus.se. Those able to play despite being self-excluded alerted the SGA, which led to an investigation.

The operator attributed the issue to technical problems, as a change in its bank ID verification supplier led to a delay in processing players registered with L&L before 1 January 2019.

This allowed prohibited players to bet during 28 April to 6 May 2019, with the ability to check players registered on the self-exclusion site delayed by 45 minutes.

Since the incident, deposits have been returned to self-excluded players who were able to gamble during the period.

The SGA said the violation contravened Chapter 12, Section 4 of the Gaming Act, where licensees must check the verified player is not registered with self-exclusion sites.

The SGA added: "The fact L&L did not do what it takes to control whether customers are registered to Spelpause.se before being allowed to play speaks for itself that the violation should be considered serious."