Unibet has moved its Swedish operation to a new licence under FDJ United. The switch took effect on 23 October 2025, less than a year after FDJ finalised its takeover of Kindred. Player accounts from the old licence have been closed, meaning everyone must register again. Affiliates, meanwhile, face a pause in tracking until new links go live later in the transition. The change highlights the balance between regulatory caution and partner confidence under Unibet’s new Swedish licence.
In exclusive comments to SiGMA News, Johan Sunnanängs of Cashleads Media says the pause is immediate and total. “We cannot do any marketing for Unibet during the coming month. This is now a transition period where no affiliates can promote Unibet Sweden.
“The period ends on 24 November 2025, at which point we will receive new tracking links.”
He adds that affiliates received an email on 21 October and the change took effect on 23 October. “There was no advance notice, and we were not given the opportunity to discuss potential solutions or any form of compensation.”
Timeline
• 03 October 2024 – FDJ confirms completion milestones for Kindred.
• 16 September 2025 – Otto Casino moves to an FDJ United licence in Sweden. Users re-register and cannot be re-tagged.
• 23 October 2025 – Unibet Sweden migrates to FDJ United. Players re-register. Historical tags and account data do not carry.
How FDJ’s licence migration strategy works in practice
FDJ United, which recently reported a third-quarter decline in revenue, has been consolidating Swedish operations under new licences. Its affiliate site set out similar steps for Otto Casino in September. Players had to re-register, and returning users could not be re-tagged to their original affiliate source. Unibet’s new Swedish licence follows the same pattern. The near-term effect is straightforward. Affiliates cannot promote Unibet until 24 November. New links will follow after the blackout period.
Sunnanängs expects larger Swedish media groups to feel sharper pain. The scale depends on the traffic mix and the deal model in place. Among those potentially affected are legacy affiliate networks with deep Swedish roots. When asked which affiliates might face sharper exposure, Sunnanängs points to Better Collective, which owns several major Swedish sites where Unibet has historically been a key partner. The true financial hit hinges on two factors — the share of traffic Unibet delivered and whether the partner worked on revenue share, cost-per-acquisition (CPA), or hybrid terms. This means the loss of historical tracking could translate into a short-term revenue gap until new links stabilise.
“Larger affiliates or media groups with a strong focus on the Swedish market are likely to be more affected. The impact depends on how much Unibet contributed to their traffic and whether their deals were revenue share, CPA, or hybrid.“
Why lost tags hit affiliates differently
Affiliate attribution sits at the core of commercial trust. A tag links a depositing player to the partner who referred them. When tags reset during a licence change, the long-tail value can vanish for revenue-share partners.
CPA partners have already been paid for the first depositors, so their exposure can be lower. Hybrid models sit between the two. That difference explains why some partners view the current pause as a significant loss. In contrast, others see it as a manageable disruption.
From Sunnanängs, the response is pragmatic.
“It is more of a wait-and-see approach. It might result in us leaning more towards fixed-payment or CPA-heavy deals going forward”
Sunnanängs confirms Unibet is not among his top three partners in Sweden, but the brand remains essential.
Regulatory reasoning and the fairness question
Sweden’s Gambling Act requires strict licensing and technical controls. Operators must also respect data protection rules when systems change. None of that proves a ban on affiliate retention, but it does explain a cautious approach when licences move entity.
Spelinspektionen, the Swedish Gambling Authority, has tightened compliance oversight in recent years, focusing on technical controls and player-data handling during licence renewals. They recently issued multi-million-kronor fines against ATG for AML breaches to reinforce that message.
While the regulator has not issued any public directive on affiliate-tag migration, the broader trend towards stricter data separation has encouraged operators to interpret the rules more conservatively when licences move between corporate entities. That context helps explain why some, including FDJ United, chose a full reset under Unibet’s new Swedish licence and similar frameworks.
The question is whether Unibet’s stricter reset was a legal need or a policy choice. On that point, Sunnanängs is clear:
“As far as I know, nothing has changed in the regulation itself. The difference lies in how the companies have chosen to interpret and apply it”
According to Sunnanängs, other operators have suggested that FDJ’s interpretation is defensible but not the only possible reading of the regulation. An obvious comparison is Expekt’s 2023 licence renewal, carried out under the same Swedish framework, in which returning users could retain their affiliate tags if they reactivated within a 60-month window. That transition, also supervised by Spelinspektionen, shows that operators had flexibility in interpreting and implementing the data-transfer rules. FDJ United’s choice appears to be a policy preference rather than a strict regulatory requirement.
For balance, the FDJ United affiliate site shows a consistent pattern in Sweden. The Otto Casino update in September stated that users must re-register and cannot be re-tagged. That suggests an internal policy line rather than a one-off decision. Against that backdrop, clarity on future transitions has become the foremost concern for affiliates.
What happens next for partners and players
Sunnanängs says affiliates need predictability above all.
“The most important factors are long-term predictability and clear communication. Transparent transition protocols would help, but consistency and early information matter most”
He would like to see a stable timeline from both FDJ United and the Swedish Gambling Authority for any future changes. That would allow partners to align tracking, plan content, and avoid sudden breaks in attribution.
He does not believe the situation surrounding Unibet’s new Swedish licence signals a broader warning for other markets under FDJ United. Each country has its own framework. Yet the handling of Unibet’s new Swedish licence shows that clear, standardised migration rules could protect both compliance integrity and commercial trust.
*Based in Sweden, Johan Sunnanängs is the founder of Cashleads Media and Spelcash.se, a Sweden-based affiliate network operating across sports betting and casino verticals.
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