Sweden closed every casino it had
On 1 January 2026 Sweden abolished casinos: no operator may now run a casino venue there. Not restricted, not licensed tightly, abolished. The Nordic gambling map now has four countries and four completely different answers.
What actually happened
Casino Cosmopol was the Swedish casino industry: a single state-owned operator, authorised in 1999, with four venues, in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö and Sundsvall. The estate shrank in stages: Sundsvall closed in 2020, Gothenburg and Malmö in February 2024. Parliament voted on 2 April 2025 to end casino licensing altogether, the Stockholm room dealt its last hand later that month, and the ban took effect on 1 January 2026.
No scandal drove it. The government's bill gives the reasons plainly: visitor numbers fell and the casinos lost money for years, and a state-owned monopoly losing money becomes a political decision rather than a commercial one. Since 1 January 2026 no operator, public or private, may run a casino venue in Sweden. Small-stakes casino tables in licensed restaurants and on ships remain legal; they are not casinos in the sense a visitor means.
Four countries, four answers
| Country | Land-based casinos | Model | Age |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sweden | None since April 2025; banned from 2026 | Casinos abolished; licensed online, restaurant tables and ships | 18 |
| Norway | None, ever | State monopoly (two operators) | 18 |
| Finland | One, in Helsinki | State monopoly (Veikkaus) | 18 |
| Denmark | Seven, licensed | Private operators; casinos since 1990, online licensing since 2012 | 18 |
Read down that table and a pattern appears that has nothing to do with morality and everything to do with sequence. Denmark licensed private online operators first, in 2012, and kept its seven licensed casinos. Sweden opened its online market in 2019 while keeping the casino floor in state hands, and the floor lost. Norway never opened anything. Finland is mid-reform, with one room left after Tampere closed at the end of 2023.
What this means for a trip
If you are in Stockholm and looking for a casino, the honest answer is that there is not one; the only tables are small-stakes restaurant casino games. The nearest licensed casinos are in Denmark (Copenhagen is a short trip from southern Sweden) or Germany, where each federal state licenses its own. Ferries between Finland and Sweden carry gaming too, some of it under Åland's separate rules.
Wherever you land, the arithmetic travels with you: European single-zero roulette costs 2.70% on every bet, and the blackjack payout line is worth reading before you sit, 3:2 against 6:5 is +1.35 percentage points, more than every other rule difference combined.
Why most guides still get this wrong
Search for casinos in Sweden today and you will still find listings for Casino Cosmopol, opening hours and all. Directory sites update slowly, and a chain authorised in 1999 leaves a long tail of pages behind it. This is the ordinary failure mode of copied content: a fact was true when someone wrote it down, and nobody has checked since.
It is the same reason each of our country pages says what it was checked against and when. A reference that would rather be incomplete than wrong is the only kind worth keeping.
Sources
- Swedish Government, Prop. 2024/25:73, Avveckling av statliga kasinon (19 December 2024): the four casinos and their closures, the reasons, the licensed market since 2019, the restaurant and ship rules, age 18, and the other Nordic countries.
- Riksdag, committee report 2024/25:KrU9 (decided 2 April 2025): casino licensing ends on 1 January 2026.
- Danish Gambling Authority, Land-based casinos: seven licensed casinos; Folketingstidende, Lov om spillekasinoer (13 June 1990).
- Norway: the Gambling Act (Lovvedtak 39, 2021-2022) and the Norwegian Gambling Authority: two exclusive-rights operators, age 18.
- Svenska Spel, Svenska Spel stänger Casino Cosmopol i Stockholm (25 April 2025) and the 2025 annual report (page 20): the Stockholm casino closed on 25 April 2025.
Checked on 12 October 2026 against the sources above. Gambling law moves; confirm anything consequential with the regulator before relying on it.