The Finnish casino legislation is currently undergoing major changes. For the first time in its history, Finland is stepping outside of its long-standing monopoly on gambling. By the start of 2027, the Finnish market will potentially have dozens of new companies.
In this article, we take a long hard look at the new Finnish gambling system. At the same time, we also go over some things that led to the change being made.
A quick recap of why Finland is going to regulate
The Finnish state-owned Veikkaus, which has undergone a few name changes over the years, has had a monopoly on Finnish gambling ever since the 1940s. It has ruled over the market with a proverbial iron fist, monopolizing everything from lottery-based games to scratch cards, sports betting, and slot machines. The first cracks in this monopoly were only seen when the first foreign online casinos hit the market.
The first foreign online casinos started targeting Finns at the start of the millennium. Despite the state having a monopoly within Finnish borders, things were a little more open and free online. Even so, not that many Finnish people ended up playing outside of the system just yet. Signing up to foreign online casinos was simply too difficult as players needed to download the whole casino software in order to play.
While the first online casinos failed to penetrate the Finnish market, the technology was rapidly evolving. What is more, the online casinos on the free market would offer players better returns than the monopoly did. On top of this, foreign casinos would give out deposit bonuses and free spins, which was also something that was unheard of for Finnish players.
Year by year, the Finnish Veikkaus’ so-called channelization rate would decrease. The whole idea of the monopoly was to keep as much of the Finnish money inside of the system as possible. However, in its latter years, the monopoly was starting to lose a lot of money to outside companies. In 2022, the state-run Veikkaus itself would be the one to suggest giving up its monopoly on Finnish gambling.
Regulating the market is an effort to improve the channelization rate
The idea of any regulated system is to get the vast majority of the competition to play within the same rules and under the same umbrella. The website zimplerkasinot.net lists a number of popular online casinos, which the Finnish state hopes to welcome into its new regulated system. Only the online casinos purchasing a Finnish license will be paying taxes to Finland in the future.
There are still many unanswered questions about the new Finnish licensing model. The ultimate goal is to create a system that most foreign online casino companies will want to participate in. However, this is a well-known balancing act between the interests of three different groups: the players, the state, and the foreign casino companies.
One major hurdle will be navigating marketing. Foreign online casinos would love to be able to market their services in order to get themselves as many paying customers as possible. Conversely, drowning the whole country in gambling advertisements might not be in the interest of the Finnish public. Problem gambling has been a major issue in Finland for years, which means that casino marketing will definitely be a hot-button topic for a long time to come.
Online casino bonuses can also be considered an important part of casino marketing. Although players are known to appreciate deposit bonuses, cashbacks, and free spins, offering perks such as this can be seen as trying to incentivize people to play. Obviously, this is not what a responsible gambling operator or a state wants to seem like doing.
Conclusion
The Finnish politicians and decision-makers are currently faced with a number of difficult decisions when it comes to the new regulated gambling model.
When the neighboring country Sweden started regulating in 2019, a lot of mistakes were made. For instance, Swedish television and radio immediately filled up with gambling advertisements, and things are still not ideal. This is something that the Finnish state will want to avoid.
It will be very interesting to see what the new Finnish gambling legislation will look like in 2027!
