Spelinspektionen targets Duel and Lufilight offshore brands

• Spelinspektionen prohibits Immortal Snail and Lufilight from offering gambling in Sweden without a licence.
• Duel told the regulator Sweden would be IP-blocked, but no block was in place on 28 October.
• Lufilight’s mirror sites changed domain names during the investigation and kept Swedish defaults.

Sweden’s gambling regulator has prohibited the operators of crypto casino Duel and three Lufilight brands from offering gambling in Sweden without a licence.

Both decisions, dated 28 October, take immediate effect, and a test that evening by trade outlet Bettingbladet found registration still open.

Two cases, one test

Spelinspektionen issued separate decisions against Immortal Snail LLC, which runs Duel.com, and Lufilight Ltd, which runs Ivibet, Hellspin and Slotsgem. Neither company holds a Swedish licence.

Both decisions contain the same finding. The investigations did not show that Swedish consumers were prevented from registering and creating an account.

That matters under the regulator’s stated approach. If Swedish consumers cannot register on a gambling site, Spelinspektionen says it does not consider that gambling to be offered in Sweden. It still makes an overall assessment of each case, and here it weighed open registration alongside Swedish-facing content and marketing.

The regulator also carried out covert test purchases on duel.com and on Lufilight’s sites. According to both decisions, none were completed.

Duel’s unbuilt block

The Immortal Snail decision found Swedish appearing as a language at the payment method step on duel.com. SEK could also be selected there. The site was marketed through Swedish-language websites aimed at local consumers.

The company’s response to the regulator was unusually direct for an offshore operator. It argued that Swedish is an international language and stated that Sweden was to be IP-blocked. It also said it could not control whether payments were made in SEK, and that it would not stop offering Swedish on the site.

Spelinspektionen ran a follow-up check on 28 October. It found that the IP block against Sweden had not been implemented. SEK and Swedish still appeared when logging in from a Swedish IP address, and the Swedish-language marketing continued.

The regulator’s findings end there. Separately, Bettingbladet visited Duel at 19:30 that evening and met no block. It created an account from a Swedish IP address using only a username and password. SEK and Swedish were not available to select at that point.

Anjouan on the footer

According to the decision, duel.com states that Immortal Snail holds licence ALSI-202411026-FI1 from Anjouan, in the Comoros. The company is registered in Charlestown, Nevis. Anjouan has pushed back on criticism of its role in offshore licensing.

Duel was founded by Ossi “Monarch” Ketola, the Finnish entrepreneur behind skin-betting site CSGOEmpire. Spelinspektionen has crossed paths with him before. In November 2023, it prohibited CSGOEmpire operator Moonrail Limited B.V., citing Swedish-language content and marketing through affiliates and video-platform sponsorship.

Mirrors on the move

The Lufilight decision describes a moving target. At the regulator’s first check, the three brand domains redirected to mirror websites at ivibettnow.com, hellspin222.com and gemslots1.com.

Each mirror had Sweden and the +46 dialling code preselected for registration from a Swedish IP address. The brands were also promoted through Swedish-language affiliate marketing.

By the follow-up review, the mirrors had changed domain names. The new sites kept the Swedish defaults, and the brands were still marketed on Swedish-language websites. The regulator treated them as a continuation of the same business, based on the redirects, branding, content, structure and Swedish adaptations.

Spelinspektionen put its findings to Lufilight at both stages. The company did not respond either time.

The decision cites Kahnawake’s licence register as showing that Lufilight holds a licence there. Spelinspektionen could not identify the company’s registration number, licence number or address.

Bettingbladet’s evening test

Bettingbladet’s check that evening found the brands on addresses other than those named in the decision. Ivibet redirected to ivi555.com, Hellspin to hellspin139.com and Slotsgem to slotsgem55.com. All three had Sweden and +46 preselected.

The outlet completed a full registration on Hellspin with a Swedish phone number. It then opened a deposit form listing Visa and Mastercard alongside bonus options. It did not complete accounts on Ivibet or Slotsgem.

The supply chain question

Both decisions turn on localised payment options, Swedish defaults and affiliate marketing. Two of those run through third parties: payment providers and affiliates.

Swedish law prohibits promoting unlicensed gambling, and Spelinspektionen has been using that power. In a January update, it reported cases against websites running banners, influencers and payment intermediaries for unlicensed operators. Three led to orders backed by fines, one of which was later overturned.

Payments are a natural pressure point. Spelinspektionen shares licensed operators’ merchant IDs with payment providers so that legitimate card payments are not blocked by mistake. Card brands on a prohibited operator’s deposit page point to the gap on the other side of that list.

Suppliers face a related risk. Sweden requires a software licence for game suppliers, and regulators elsewhere are following content into unlicensed lobbies. The UK Gambling Commission’s Evolution settlement showed what that can cost a supplier.

What a prohibition reaches

A prohibition changes Duel’s legal position in Sweden. On its own, it does not change what a Swedish visitor sees. Lufilight’s domain changes show how a decision tied to named addresses can fall behind the sites it covers.

Nordic lawyers have argued that enforcement alone will not fix channelisation. UK research has linked KYC friction on licensed sites to players drifting offshore. A username-and-password sign-up is hard for a BankID-verified product to match on convenience.

The next lever sits with the businesses that keep these brands running. Affiliates, payment partners and content suppliers can act faster than any domain list can be updated.