Swedish gambling monopoly Svenska Spel has announced revenues of just over $834 million for 2007, a rise of over nine percent, with profits from online poker and telephone betting up 38 percent to over $187 million.

Svenska Spel is the largest gaming company in Sweden with a market share of 55 percent and annual turnover in 2006 of $3.2 billion. The firm announced in October that profits had risen $215 million as a result of an increased demand for online gambling and its portfolio of over 20 games.

These latest figures illustrate the lucrative nature of the firm’s hold on Sweden’s gambling market as profits for 2006 amounted to almost $747 million with around $174 million going to non-Governmental and sports organisations for children and youth development.

The growth comes against the backdrop of Sweden’s prosecution last year of six people for organising an unlicensed tournament with the nation also being investigated by the European Union’s Compliance Commissioner, Charlie McCreevy, for excluding gambling companies based in other European Union nations from its market in defiance of the bloc’s principles of free movement of trade and services between member states.

Source: iGamingBusiness.com