Finnish gaming operator Paf has acquired Swedish rival Mandalorian Technologies to boost its fortunes in the latter country’s regulated online gambling market.
On Friday, Paf announced that it had acquired the operations of Malta-based Mandalorian Technologies Ltd, which include the No Account Casino, No Account Bet, Prank Casino and Prank Bet dot-com sites.
Mandalorian’s sites have licenses issued by the Malta Gaming Authority as well as licenses issued by Sweden’s Spelinspektionen gambling regulatory agency. Paf, which holds a gambling monopoly in Finland’s autonomous Swedish-speaking Åland Islands, claims that the acquisition will make it “one of the ten largest gaming companies in Sweden” and signals the company’s “long-term ambition to be a leader” in Sweden’s regulated market.
Paf CEO Christer Fahlstedt said his group had been following Mandalorian’s growth “closely for almost a year,” noting that the company “did not exist two years ago and their journey has been fantastic.”
The companies aren’t exactly strangers, as Mandalorian has implemented Paf’s policies for anti-money laundering and responsible gambling since September 2019. Fahlstedt said this relationship was “a crucial test for us, to see if they can successfully compete in a tightly regulated market and at the same time stay at the forefront when it comes to responsibility.”
The companies also share a presence in Spelinspektionen’s bad books, each of them having been dragged to Sweden’s regulatory woodshed for compliance shortcomings. One year ago, Paf was fined SEK100k for allowing self-excluded gamblers to access its Swedish-licensed online gambling site.
Mandalorian was penalized much more severely last May, dinged SEK9m (US$960k) to atone for what Spelinspektionen called “serious” and “repeated” violations of its rules regarding bonus offers, which in Sweden can only be offered to first-time customers.
Spelinspektionen has issued numerous fines for various regulatory breaches since the regulated online market launched on January 1, 2019, but the regulator revealed last December that Paf was the only company to date that had actually paid its fine.
