Announcement about Balacs Pinball Party and IFPA8 World Pinball Championship

The National Gaming Board of Sweden informed us this Tuesday that the
pinball tournaments Balacs Pinball Party and IFPA8 World Pinball
Championships are illegal according to Swedish law, and thus we need a
license to be able to run the tournaments. They also filed a report at the
local police about the tournaments, and that they would be considered
illegal if played without a license. We spent the Wednesday to collect all
the documents from different sources needed for the application, and
yesterday morning Stockholm Pinball (which is the legal entity in Sweden
that have the closest connection to the tournaments) applied for this
license. Normally the handling timeframe is one month, but the gaming board
gave our application the highest priority and rapid treatment.

However, about two hours ago they informed us that they will not be able to
make the decision in time for this weekend (since they closed about two
hours ago). This means that we cannot run the Balacs Pinball Party
tournament this weekend without breaking the law. They also requested
additional information from us, and we are now working on providing them
with this information. They will continue to work on our application Monday
morning, and well before that we will have given them the information
requested. We still have hope that we can save the IFPA8 tournament without
having to postpone or cancel the tournament.

The National Gaming Board of Sweden have also informed us that winning
prizes consisting of money or having a value of money at pinball tournaments
are not allowed by Swedish law. The IFPA World Pinball Championships will
thus not pay out any prizes. If the gaming board will grant us a license, we
will have to play for the honor and glory alone. Information about the
outcome of the application, and the economical consequences for the
participants, will be announced as soon as we know how things will turn out.