Facts on EDITORIAL REVIEW
Selling the dream
How Gambling Became a Swedish Family Affair—and the Bedrock of Nordic Home Life, 1890s–1949
Intro
From Penninglotteriet’s launch in 1897 to Tipstjänst’s football pools and Gunnar Gren’s advertisements, Swedish gambling became part of the furniture—normalized, cozy, and quietly patriotic. Sweeping state campaigns, nurtured by the largest advertising budgets, made gambling part of everyday life—and a cornerstone of the “folkhemmet” ideal.
Swedish Gambling History, Source: Svenska Spel
Bellmanlotteriet Launch—Historic Swedish Lottery, Source Svenska Spel
Setting the Scene: Sweden and Scandinavia 1890s–1949
Turn-of-the-century Sweden faced poverty, migration, and industrialization, while Denmark, Norway, and Finland managed similar transitions.
Policymakers across Scandinavia saw lotteries and later sports pools as engines for public fundraising, channeling money into culture, infrastructure, and emerging welfare states.
Campaign materials from the era often featured household scenes: breakfast tables, family gatherings, and kitchen routines. In Sweden and across the Nordics, such imagery helped gambling products slip seamlessly into daily life
—presented not as vice but as respectable tradition and communal pastime.
Timeline & Key Points
Pillars of Nordic Gambling—1897-1949 Milestones
This timeline traces the transformation of gambling across Sweden and its Nordic neighbors, highlighting pivotal moments when state initiatives, advertising, and cultural icons reshaped betting from a marginal pastime to a cornerstone of public welfare.
From the launch of Penninglotteriet and the legalization of horse betting, through the founding and nationalization of major lotteries, each milestone brought home-focused marketing, celebrity endorsement, and welfare-driven campaigns.
By 1950, cooperative strategies and growing revenues cemented gambling’s place at the center of Nordic civic life, underpinned by family-friendly messaging and expanding state control.
“Så mycket skoj för så lite. Bara 60 öre raden att tippa!” (So much fun for so little. Only 60 öre per line to bet!) – A cheerful 1970s Swedish state gambling advert that promoted Tipset football pools as affordable, everyday entertainment for all. Source: Svenska Spel
Cozy Campaigns, Products, and Advertising’s Golden Age
The cozy, domestic style wasn’t just a Swedish invention—Finland, Denmark, and Norway used similar imagery, though Sweden’s scale and state backing set the pace.
Tipstjänst’s campaigns (“Spela med familjen,” ”(Play with the family” ) and Penninglotteriet’s “Varje lott gör nytta” (“Every Ticket Helps”) shaped public attitudes. Football hero Gunnar Gren’s presence in ads (“A safe bet for the family!”) signaled trust and aspiration.
By the mid-century, the Swedish government was the nation’s largest client for advertising companies, funneling vast sums into media campaigns that set public tone across the Nordics.
Academic perspective
“Swedish gambling advertising was exceptionally responsible and familiar. Yet, for those most affected, it increased involvement and made it harder to gamble less; domestic imagery normalized betting, making it seem both ordinary and necessary.”
— Per Binde, Associate Professor of Social Anthropology at Stockholm University
Was Normalization Needed for Acceptance? (Sweden)
In Sweden, government-led initiatives and targeted policies shaped public acceptance of gambling, framing it as a vital contributor to social welfare and progress. Rather than associating betting with glamour or vice, major campaigns from Penninglotteriet to Tipstjänst crafted a distinctly domestic image: advertisements showed breakfast tables, family gatherings, and scenes of everyday Swedish life.
This approach was deliberate—betting was meant to appear ordinary and communal, firmly linked to the “folkhemmet” ideal of social cohesion and national routine.
Academic studies and state analyses point to normalization as the linchpin. It was never just about raising revenue or policing illicit gambling. Success depended on embedding gambling habits into the rituals of daily home life. Advertising softened perceptions of risk, portraying betting as a respectable social good rather than a social threat. As Associate Professor Per Binde notes, “To normalize gambling, campaigns had to blend betting into daily home life—making it a social good and a routine, rather than a social risk.
Swedish gambling became a quiet fixture—neither shunned nor sensationalized, but accepted alongside other elements of everyday family life. This normalization was engineered not by spectacle, but by steady, familiar imagery and the promise of collective benefit
Revenues, Transparency, and Rivalry
By 1949, Swedish state gambling revenues were approaching 200 million SEK annually, representing a sharp increase from the 1930s, when official estimates hovered between 30–50 million SEK. Revenue allocations were nominally earmarked for public welfare, infrastructure, sports, and cultural activities, but actual funding flows were bundled into broad, lump-sum accounts under the umbrella of state enterprise finance, limiting public visibility.
Financial reporting remained largely aggregate and opaque, with disclosures typically restricted to high-level totals in official publications such as Riksbank reports and government communiqués.
This lack of granular breakdown attracted criticism from social advocates, academic commentators, and private advertisers, who argued that ambiguous accounting discouraged accountability and allowed for possible misallocation among competing social sectors. Comparative analysis shows that commercial rivalry intensified during this period, as private lottery operators and rival advertising interests pointed to the state system’s lack of transparency to challenge its legitimacy and press for liberalization or sectoral reform.
llegal Gambling, Public Doubt, and the Nordic Thread
Despite state-led campaigns and family-focused advertising, illegal gambling—ranging from clandestine bookmakers to informal lotteries—remained active in Sweden throughout the twentieth century.
Demand for higher odds and untaxed winnings persisted, sparking ongoing concerns about public health and the ethics of normalization. In response, Swedish authorities strengthened state monopolies and invested heavily in relatable advertising, seeking to position gambling as a social norm. Yet, critics and researchers regularly pointed to gaps in transparency and the persistent lure of underground alternatives, highlighting that normalization alone could not fully resolve controversy or eliminate risk.
Infographic by iGaming Review of an historic gambling slogan in Sweden.
The Scandinavian Thread: Public Welfare, Control, and Cozy Normalization
From the late 19th century into the mid-20th, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland each harnessed gambling to fund public projects and build welfare states. Lotteries, pools, and—eventually—regulated betting provided governments with a dependable revenue stream for culture, infrastructure, and social programs. Though the imagery and rhetoric differed, a common strategy emerged: normalisation through the family table. Across the region, state monopolies and later competitive licensing systems leaned on celebrity faces, domestic scenes, and appeals to communal benefit, veiling controversy with routine and patriotism.
Sweden distinguished itself by the sheer scale and polish off its campaigns—becoming the largest client for advertising agencies and setting a regional tone. Yet rivals and critics persisted, especially as informal and unlicensed gambling lingered beneath the surface.
Conclusion: A (Partly) Transparent Dream
From the closing years of the 1800s to the middle of the 20th century, Sweden—alongside Denmark, Norway, and Finland—marketed a dream of progress, public comfort, and lottery-funded welfare. As the state became the largest client to advertising agencies, cozy domestic routines and celebrity faces made gambling not just a patriotic duty, but a normalized, nearly invisible presence.
Yet behind the comfort lay tactical normalization, lively rivals, and uneasy questions about risk and transparency—a red thread to follow through all four parts of this series.
Further Reading & Key Sources
Per Binde, Report from Sweden: The First State-Owned Internet Poker Site
Åström Rudberg, E. Sound and Loyal Business: The History of the Swedish Advertising Industry
Fiscal and Government Records Re-regulation of the Swedish gambling market
EXPLORE ARTICLE SERIES
How State Gambling Marketing Shaped Sweden and Scandinavia 1890 -2025
Article 1 of 4 in a series exploring ”How State Gambling Marketing Shaped Sweden and Scandinavia”: Selling the dream 1890 – 19489
Four in-depth articles take you on a journey through the history of state-driven gambling marketing in Sweden—beginning with early lotteries and welfare causes in the early 20th century, when gambling quickly became a cozy and familiar part of the Swedish folkhem. Friendly state campaigns promoted betting and lotteries as staples of home, community events, and social good, weaving them into everyday routines and the national sense of belonging. The series follows the rise of the monopoly in the 1980s, the first hints of liberalization in 2004, landmark marketplace regulation in 2019, and finally the closure of Casino Cosmopol in 2025, marking the formal end of state monopoly control.
Article series
EDITORIAL REVIEW
How State Gambling Marketing Shaped Sweden and Scandinavia 1890 – 2025
