Swedish E-Slotica: Sofia Hallqvist livens up Cherry, Mr Green and Net Ent earnings

Sweden intends to delay its promised revamp of its online gambling market, despite having been called to account by the Court of Justice for the European Union.

Ardalan Shekarabi, minister for public administration, said plans for a national consultation on how best to end the online gambling monopoly of state-owned Svenska Spel will have to wait until the government finds the money to pay for it. This could come as early as April, when the next budget is due to be fixed, although the actual implementation of any new plan could be years away.

In the meantime, we’ve got three Swedish online gambling operators’ earnings reports to consider, which we’ll try to relate with a minimum of tedium. To help the fiscal medicine go down, we’ve littered this page with images of the lovely Sofia Hallqvist, a lads’ mag model who’s set to marry Sweden’s Prince Carl Philip after living in sin together for the past four years.

Way back in 2005, Sofia swapped spit with porn star Jenna Jameson during a trip to Las Vegas. (Top that, Kate Middleton!) Sofia claimed to not have known who Jameson was when the two crossed paths at a party and Jameson reportedly told Sofia she was the cutest girl she’d ever seen. No kidding…

CHERRY AB

Swedish gaming operator Cherry AB addressed the country’s gaming market in its Q4 results statement. New CEO Fredrik Burvall said Sweden had been “quite rightly” taken to the European Court for having “too long, delayed a re-regulation.” Burvall called for a “new order” and a “modernized legislation” that allowed companies like Cherry to “compete on equal terms.”

Cherry saw revenue rise by one-third in Q4 while setting records across all its verticals. Revenue in the three months ending Dec. 31 hit SEK 100.2m (US $12m) while operating losses narrowed to SEK 6.5m from 10.7m in Q4 2013. The quarter contained an SEK 4m cost related to the change at Cherry’s CEO position.