Norway Online Casinos | Are They Legal?

Norway online casino sites

While gambling may be a more liberal activity in certain neighbouring countries, in Norway it’s not the same story. The country has its own thriving land-based casinos and state regulated online casinos. Let’s find out more about this.

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New casinos catering to the Norwegian Krone

GunsBet.com: Has a strong focus on Norway as one of its target markets and caters to both the Norwegian Krone and the Norsk language. The casino has hundreds of real money slots games, including leading titles from Microgaming and Net Entertainment. The live dealer section at this casino is also one of the strongest out of any casino licensed in Curacao. Read the Gunsbet review

Gambling online in Norway

It’s easy to write an answer to this question as yes or no, but gambling online in Norway isn’t quite as black and white as that. For the most part, gambling in Norway is illegal, whether online or offline.

However, there are two government-run companies, known as Norsk Tipping and Norsk Rikstoto that provide real money gambling opportunities to residents – again, as both online and offline entities. These remain as the only officially legal methods for Norwegian citizens to gamble from within their country. These platforms provide players with options for playing lotteries, placing sports bets, casino gambling, accessing keno and other games.

Of course, because these are owned and run by the government, all proceeds from such go back into the system. Norsk Tipping remains as an entirely state-owned entity, operating under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture and Church affairs.

There are rules that dictate what times of day and how much players from Norway are able to bet at these government-run sites as well. Rules surrounding gambling state that all players have to be at least 18 years old to play at Norsk Tipping. However, the exception to this rule is the scratch card games. Norsk Rikstoto is also owned by the state, but deals solely with horse racing bets.

This means that anyone who is looking to place bets on a wider range of games or at a platform that isn’t owned by the state, has to visit offshore platforms. This is not something that is legal in Norway, and the government is trying to halt such activity as best it can. Several online casinos have already been blacklisted and blocked within the country and further efforts are being made to stop such outside platforms from gaining access to Norwegian players’ money.

Online casino games

The Norsk Tipping brands KongKasino has a strong selection of slots games and table games, although in comparison to other sites based in offshore locations the game selection at the regulated sites can be a let down. Other legal and state-condoned games include bingo, lottery and keno variations. To find out more about online casino games read our helpful guides:

Online casino bonus offers

Online casinos licensed in Malta and Gibraltar will often accept customers from Norway and will cater to the NOK currency. Often some of the best brands will run specific promotions targeting the high value Norwegian players.

These promotions could range from anything like free spins, cash back offers, reload bonuses to your standard sign up offer, where the player is given a matched deposit, or a no deposit bonus just for the act of becoming a member at the casino.

You can view the latest bonus promotions or check out the latest sign up offers.

Norwegian Krone deposit options

The Norwegian Krone exists as Norway’s official currency and holds much the same value as the Swedish Krona and Danish Krone. While several online casinos that cater to Norwegian players do offer the possibility for depositing and playing in this currency, the government of Norway has placed blocks on certain methods of depositing at offshore sites.

This means that while credit and debit cards would be a logical choice, it’s a frequent occasion that transactions via these methods won’t process through due to strict banking laws. Therefore, Norwegian players have to utilise alternative options. Some of the depositing methods that are available include:

Credit and Debit Cards:

eWallets:

Prepaid Cards:

Online Funds Transfer:

Land-based gambling in Norway

Because the only legal entities for gambling in Norway are the state-owned offerings mentioned, the overall status of gambling in the country is very much restricted for citizens. Norsk Rikstoto and Norsk Tipping are fully backed by the government, but apart from these companies, you won’t find any other offerings within.

This goes for both land-based casinos and online casinos. Laws are very much a strict thing in Norway when it comes to gambling. The government claims that this is due to the fact that it wants to combat and minimise gambling addiction as much as possible. When it was looking to form laws surrounding a gambling industry, Norway turned its attention to the United States. From the US laws, it took most of its influence.

With this in mind, the only possible option for Norwegian players to go beyond the laws that restrict them to the two state-owned gambling sites, is to navigate to an offshore casino. There are various platforms that do cater to this market as well, although the Norwegian government does deem it illegal for residents to use their money at such sites.

That’s why several basic depositing methods are often unusable at offshore casinos. Furthermore, as stated earlier, the government has taken it upon itself to blacklist and block a large number of casinos from providing their services to Norwegian players.

Online casinos & gambling laws

Norway took it upon itself to utilise the 2006 Unlawful Internet Enforcement Act of the United States of America as some sort of a blueprint for creating its own gambling laws. These laws came into effect on June 1, 2010 and worked as a response to there being multiple online offshore platforms attracting Norwegian players to their casinos.

One part of the law made financial transactions between residents of Norway and any online gambling operators outside of the two state-owned options an illegal operation. And because Norway does not exist as part of the European Union, casino operators from other EU states have not been able to challenge such laws. This is not something that can be said for the neighbouring country of Sweden.

Of course, the laws and ban on these transactions are very difficult to enforce, considering there are so many offshore platforms and new ones crop up on such a regular basis. Therefore, Norwegian citizens do still have the option of playing at online casinos that are not based within their country. However, this is at their own discretion, and anyone opting to do this from Norway needs to thoroughly research the platform that they’re intending to join before doing so.

Norway Geography

Norway, officially known as the Kingdom of Norway, exists as a sovereign state that comprises of the western part of the Scandinavian Peninsula. Right up until 1814, Norway also had possession of the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Iceland, and still lays claim to a section of Antarctica known as Queen Maud Land. However, it still officially holds the island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago that goes by the name of Svalbard. While it shares borders with Finland and Russia in the north east, Sweden makes up its longest bordering country.