bwin called its bets 'risk-free' — one customer's DKK 15 payout proved they weren't

Between October 2020 and December 2022, Entain's Danish subsidiary ElectraWorks Limited — operator of betting site bwin.dk — ran promotions offering 'Risk-free play up to DKK 1,000' and 'Risk-free play up to DKK 500'. A customer who bet DKK 1,000, lost, and received a free-bet token of equal value then won that free bet — and was paid out just DKK 15 in winnings, not the DKK 1,000 he understood himself to be risk-free on.

The customer complained, and Denmark's Consumer Ombudsman referred the case to police in May 2024. The Copenhagen City Court found the campaign misleading: a free-bet token that only pays out the net difference on a win, rather than the full stake, does not make the original bet risk-free. Consumer Ombudsman Torben Jensen said it was 'undoubtedly misleading to market itself as a game being risk-free if it is not in fact the case that the consumer does not risk losing money.'

ElectraWorks pleaded guilty. The court initially set the fine at DKK 1 million, citing the campaign's multi-year run and its targeting of young people and new customers, then halved it to DKK 500,000 (€67,000) over delays in processing the case — calculated as double what the company said it had spent on the campaign's marketing.