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An ex-Veikkaus executive has called on Finland’s government to drop the planned ban on bonuses and affiliates included in the draft legislation that would open the market for the first time.
A draft of a new Gambling Act that would end the monopoly of state-owned operator Veikkaus is currently open for consultation.
Jari Vähänen, the former vice president of international affairs at Veikkaus and current chair of the Finnish Gambling Association, posted a detailed review of the bill via his company, The Finnish Gambling Consultants.
Despite his obvious delight that the government is pushing ahead with plans to open up the market, which is something Vähänen has campaigned for since leaving Veikkaus in 2020, he raised several concerns.
In particular, he called for a planned ban on all bonuses to be reversed. Instead, the government should allow limited promotions and instead restrict large or complicated wagering requirements, he said.
The bill would also not permit the use of any third-party marketing, including by affiliates.
That restriction plays into the hands of the black market, claims Vähänen, and could also create legal confusion where affiliates advertise big international brands likely to enter the Finnish market on websites that can be visited by Finns, but are targeted at jurisdictions where affiliates are permitted.
“It is not always clear which country’s regulation the affiliate operates under,” said Vähänen.
“In Finland, a lot of searches related to gambling are made through search engines, especially Google, which direct people to affiliate sites. People do not stop such searches, and the direction of internet traffic to affiliate sites does not stop, even if affiliate activity is prohibited in Finnish gambling operations.”
Instead, affiliates should be licensed directly, as they are in Romania, if the government wishes to keep tight control over gambling marketing, he suggested.
There are understandable fears in Finland that the planned market opening in early 2027 will be followed by a wave of gambling advertising.
That destructive pattern has been witnessed in recent years in the Netherlands and Sweden, which has served as a model for much of the new Finnish legislation.
In both countries, the response to a flood of gambling ads has placed political pressure on the online gambling industry.
Vähänen, who chairs a trade group that represents many of the companies hoping to enter the market, said little to allay those fears in his response to the draft, appearing resigned to an inevitable battle for market share.
He instead argued that in the knowledge that if a wave of advertising was incoming, it was inappropriate for the government to regulate marketing and still own one of the companies running those ads, namely Veikkaus.
Similar arguments in Sweden to encourage the government to sell off state-owned Svenska Spel have fallen on deaf ears.
Vähänen pointed to comments by the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority, which also raised concerns about the role of the government in the market as both participant and watchdog.
In its comments, the consumer agency also came out in favour of deposit limits, which form a core part of the draft legislation.
"Limiting the amount spent on gambling can be an effective way to reduce the harm caused by gambling,” said senior advisor Joel Karjalainen.
“But if you want to increase government revenue, you should set the lottery tax high enough. The Danish example suggests that it is possible to set a moderately high tax level without lowering the channelling rate," he said.
Vähänen’s organisation is predictably less keen on gambling limits, arguing that players will hop from operator to operator once they hit their maximum spending thresholds.
“Mandatory limits are not a good way to curb problem gambling but an excellent way to weaken the channelling ability of the gambling system,” he said.
The draft gambling legislation is still under consultation and remains open for comments until the end of this week, on Sunday (August 18).
