Hannes Snellman Highlights Q2 | 2024 - Finnish Gambling System Reform Is Underway

We have published our Hannes Snellman Highlights Q2/2024 issue.

The topic in this issue is Finnish gambling system reform.

Finnish Gambling System Reform Is Underway — Licence Model to Be Introduced
From Monopoly to Licensing

For the past few years, public debate has been ongoing regarding the Finnish gambling monopoly and its partial opening to competition. With the rapid growth of foreign online gambling websites outside the monopoly-based system in Finland as well as the inability of authorities to efficiently control and prevent the provision of such services, opinions have largely changed in favour of reforming the current monopoly-based system.

As a significant step towards a transition, the current Finnish Government Programme states that the Government will be reforming Finland’s gambling system and opening it to competition using a licence model by 1 January 2026 at the latest. According to the Government Programme, the gambling licence system will, as a rule, cover online casino games and online betting.

In Finland, the objectives of the current Finnish Lotteries Act (1047/2001) are to ensure the legal protection of those participating in lotteries, to prevent misuse and crime related to lotteries, and to prevent and reduce the economic, social, and health-related harm resulting from participation in lotteries. Said objectives have so far been considered to be best realised in an exclusivity-based gambling system, where the wholly state-owned limited liability company Veikkaus Oy has had the exclusive right to run all gambling games.

Read the full text here: Hannes Snellman Highlights Q2 | 2024

Hannes Snellman Highlights brings together interesting news and current themes from the past quarter year.