Norway’s gambling regulator has ordered Norsk Tipping to implement stronger player monitoring controls after data showed the state operator’s online casino user base has doubled since 2020.
Figures submitted by Lotteritilsynet to the Ministry of Culture show registered online casino players at Norsk Tipping’s KongKasino platform rising from approximately 200,000 in 2020 to around 400,000 in 2026. Some 50,000 of those customers were newly activated during 2025 alone.
Lotteritilsynet director general Atle Hamar has intervened directly, ordering additional player monitoring and stronger individual controls on casino activity in response to the growth figures.
KongKasino growth creates a new policy problem
What had been framed as a channelisation success for Norwegian authorities is now generating a more complex regulatory concern. The volume of players staying inside the regulated system has grown, but those players are gravitating toward casino products that Lotteritilsynet considers among the highest-risk gambling formats.
The concern is not purely quantitative. Regulators have expressed growing unease about who is entering the regulated ecosystem and how they arrive. Officials increasingly believe younger users are coming into gambling already shaped by gaming mechanics, influencer content, streaming culture, and digital reward systems. Casino products, available constantly through mobile with rapid play cycles, sit at the centre of those concerns.
The regulator fears some players who reach Norsk Tipping’s loss limits may simply migrate to unlicensed international casino sites operating outside Norwegian consumer safeguards.
Offshore market share and the channelisation balance
Norway’s monopoly model rests on a public-interest argument: a tightly controlled state market is more effective at keeping consumers away from offshore operators than an open licensing system. On the headline channelisation numbers, that argument still holds.
Lotteritilsynet estimates foreign gambling companies account for 12% to 14% of Norway’s overall gambling market by GGR. Participation rates are moving in the right direction. In 2025, 2.6% of Norwegians used foreign operators, down from 3.8% the previous year.
The picture changes in the competitive verticals. In online casino, sports betting, and horse wagering, the segments where offshore operators directly compete with the state platform, foreign companies still account for around 31% of the market. Norsk Tipping holds approximately 55% in those same segments, with Norsk Rikstoto at 14%.
Norwegian players lost approximately NOK 1.9bn to foreign gambling operators during 2025, equivalent to roughly €165m. Lotteritilsynet cautioned that revised methodologies make direct year-on-year comparisons unreliable, but the 2025 estimate sits around NOK 500m above previous 2024 figures.
Friction measures and self-exclusion growth
New friction measures targeting casino products are under discussion. One proposal would require players to complete mandatory educational prompts and risk-awareness modules before accessing certain games. Regulators are also considering more proactive interventions for players whose activity shows early-stage risk patterns.
Changes in one area are already visible. After regulatory scrutiny, Norsk Tipping made its self-exclusion tools more prominent. Exclusion registrations reportedly rose 200% during 2025.
That growth in exclusion registrations complicates the picture. It could reflect genuine increases in problem gambling awareness. It could also reflect the expanded user base, meaning more players and more exclusions. Lotteritilsynet has not drawn firm conclusions on causation.
Norway holds the line on market structure
The wider political environment has not shifted. Norway continues to resist pressure from European trade groups and commercial betting interests to dismantle its monopoly framework. The country participates in the European Economic Area but remains outside the European Union, giving it greater legal latitude to preserve exclusive rights for state-controlled gambling operators. Cross-border oversight of exactly these kinds of monopoly-adjacent markets was among the topics when seven European gambling regulators convened in Madrid in November 2025.
Revenue generated by Norsk Tipping and Norsk Rikstoto continues to fund sports programmes, cultural projects, and welfare initiatives administered by the Ministry of Culture, providing a domestic political rationale that has remained durable across successive parliaments.
The structural tension Hamar’s intervention exposes is not new, but the scale of KongKasino’s user growth has sharpened it. Norway needs its state operator attractive enough to outcompete unlicensed sites. It also needs to demonstrate that a doubling of online casino participation is compatible with its player protection obligations. Norsk Tipping was fined NOK 10m by Nordic regulators in 2025, a signal that the regulator’s tolerance for compliance shortfalls is limited even within the state model.
Neither of those objectives has become easier with 400,000 registered casino users and a NOK 1.9bn offshore loss figure in the same annual report.
Source: Lotteritilsynet
