Licence applications have begun pouring in for the new Finnish online gambling market, but some potentially big players are still sitting on the sidelines over fears that lawmakers could yet spring a late compliance surprise.
Finland will end its longstanding gambling monopoly in July 2027, when licensed onshore operators are for the first time permitted to compete with state-owned Veikkaus.
The window for licence applications opened recently and insiders believe that more than 20 companies have applied so far.
Finland’s population is a modest 5.6m, but its people’s appetite for gambling is well documented — it regularly ranks in the top five nations for gambling spend per capita.
The new gambling act is also seen by the industry as a largely sensible piece of lawmaking, even taking into account some unwanted compromises such as a ban on affiliates and most bonus offers.
However, with over a year to go before the market launches, there are some new jitters about what additional measures the government may choose to introduce between now and then.
The centre of attention is the prospect of “centralised loss limits”, meaning a hard cap on gambling losses across the entire market, akin to the rules in Germany’s much-maligned online market.
This is the flagship recommendation of the Gambling Harm Risk and Harm Assessment Group, which was asked by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health to conduct a review of safer gambling rules ahead of the market’s opening.
Finland’s new gambling law imposes on operators a duty of care for their customers, but is not particularly specific about what that means.
The assessment group’s advice to government will inform how, and if, ministers clarify this requirement via secondary legislation.
Its recommendations in late January included calls for loss limits to be introduced immediately, which the government could do via decree — several of which are expected in the coming months to establish essential details of the new regime.
Paf postpones
That uncertainty has left at least one prominent local operator still sitting on the sidelines.
Gambling company Paf is based on the semi-autonomous Swedish-speaking Aland Islands, which are nevertheless part of Finland.
Speaking to a webinar organised by Finnish iGaming Events (FIGE), Paf’s senior VP of public affairs Sverker Skogberg revealed that the company was not among the initial 20+ licence applicants.
Sverker said that there is plenty of time before July 2027 and the company is cautious about the proposed deposit limits and “wants to see how it will develop”.
“We need to know what’s coming,” he said.
Despite these concerns, it seems highly unlikely that Paf will avoid the Finnish market altogether.
Earlier this month, the operator signed Finland motosports legend Kimi Räikkönen as a brand ambassador.
“As new opportunities are opening up for Paf in mainland Finland as well, I hope that our cooperation will be beneficial,” said the former Formula 1 world champion.
What are the odds?
Whether or not Finland’s government opts to follow the recommendations of its assessment group and introduce market-wide loss limits is still uncertain.
But speaking at the same FIGE webinar, Jari Vähänen of the Finnish Gambling Consultants described it as a “minor risk”.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he added, “but let’s see”.
Vähänen noted that looking back to the process of forming the new gambling law provides some clues to explain why the risk and harm group may have made such a bold proposal.
Throughout those months, advisors for the industry clashed with stakeholders more interested in promoting responsible gambling in pitches to the government, said Vähänen, who is a former executive at Veikkaus and met with officials a number of times as during lawmakers’ intelligence-gathering process.
The general view is that the pro-industry camp won out, he said, suggesting that calls for deposit limits may be an attempt by those with more of a public health approach to gambling to inject more of their influence into the regulations before they go live.
Instead, Vähänen said he hopes to see the government leave the market to operate for at least a year in its current form before it considers making any major changes.
The big risk
Paf may be biding its time, but there are reasons to think that operators keen on hitting the ground running in Finland should be getting their plans together now.
According to reports, several of the small group of leading media outlets in Finland have already sold their advertising allocation for the months after market launch.
There is also a very real fear among the industry that some form of marketing pushback is almost inevitable.
Even with the lessons of nearby Sweden and the recent ad crackdown in Denmark, there’s little faith that the industry will be able to hold itself back from a barrage of advertising as they compete tooth and nail for market share.
As Vähänen noted, Finnish consumers may be used to Veikkaus gambling ads promoting the lottery, but they are much less familiar with online casino advertising and lessons from several other European nations suggest that public reaction to a notable uptick in gambling marketing is less than favourable.
