A slow but steady decline in Swedish gambling participation

There’s been a slow but steady decline in the number of Swedes who admit to gambling in the past year, according to the latest survey by the country’s gambling regulator.

On Wednesday, the Lotteriinspektionen gaming regulatory body released its annual snapshot of the average Swedish gambler, which showed that 66% of the 1,044 adults surveyed had engaged in at least one form of gambling over the past 12 months. (The full survey results can be found here, in Swedish.)

The figure is down only two points from the 2016 survey, but this number has been trending downward in each of the past four annual surveys and is now five points below the 2014 survey.

Of those who hadn’t gambled in the last 12 months, 34% claimed it was because they never won anything, a five-point rise in this justification from 2016. A further 22% said it was because they had no confidence in the current gaming market, also up five points year-on-year.