Unfortunately, I still have nothing new to share about Finland's future gambling system officially. As I explained in my previous blog, the authorities preparing the legislation have not shared any interim information during the process. However, some additional information has leaked out during the process, and I have also helped, at least to a small extent, in planning and preparing the new gambling legislation. As an entrepreneur, I want compensation for my work, but when the motherland asks, I am ready to make an exception. I hope my work was helpful for the upcoming change.
As you may remember, according to the original schedule, the working group had to finish its work by the beginning of March, and the public hearing process was supposed to start at the beginning of June at the latest. As I guessed last time, the work of the working group was not completed according to the schedule, and the ready part did not correspond to the will of the Finnish government. Because of this, Prime Minister Petteri Orpo and his government decided to take the monitoring of the legislative project directly under their control. The preparation is still handled by the same working group, whose steering group remained unchanged, but now the matter will be reported to the Ministerial Committee on Economic Policy. This change seems to have accelerated the preparation of the legislation.
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Finnish Prime Minister
Petteri Orpo
According to unofficial information, the policies presented by the working group at the beginning of March contained overly strict restrictions on gambling activities. Based on them, it would not have been credible to assume that the channelization rate of the Finnish gambling system could have risen even close to the target level of 90%. An optimally functioning system must have a balance between responsible gaming and business opportunities. This is also the goal of the Finnish government so that the number of gambling problems does not increase and the largest possible share of gambling takes place within an officially controlled system.
No new timetable has been given for the preparation of the legislation, so it is assumed that the government will still stick to the original goal of having the new gambling system come into effect from the beginning of 2026. Since the work of the working group has been delayed in any case, it can be assumed that further delays will be avoided, and the schedule will be tightened in other respects. According to unofficial information, the goal is for the working group to finish its work by the end of May, or at least before the civil servants' summer vacation period. Based on this, it can be assumed that the public hearing process could start in August at the best and the beginning of September at the latest.
A ready legislative text is needed for the public hearing so that when the process starts, we know what kind of system the government wants for Finland. In principle, it is possible that as a result of the public hearing process, there will still be significant changes to the legislative proposal. Still, it is more likely that the proposal's content will remain approximately the same. For this reason, I consider the proposal of the Lottery Act that will be made public in August - September as an important basis for gambling companies' and system suppliers' assessment of whether it is worth it to start preparing to enter the Finnish market.
Of course, it is unfortunate that the schedule has already been at least somewhat delayed. On the other hand, in the big picture, a delay of 2-3 months means nothing in the end. However, it would be easier to adapt to that additional time of a few months if there was a certainty that it was indeed an official schedule. Unfortunately, this is not the case because the time estimate is only my "best guess" at this point. I understand that they want to do the preparatory work properly, but information about the progress of the process could have been done more openly.
In my previous blog, I made guesses about the future system. Even now, just two months later, I would be ready to change a few points. Veikkaus is trying to hold on to its monopoly in horse betting, eBingo, and eInstant areas. The influence of the state-owned company regarding gambling has been enormous, and that weight is still not small. For this reason, I suppose that at least some of those product areas remain within the scope of the monopoly system.
Another change to my guesses has to do with regulating the gambling system. Based on the government's program, it seemed clear that the work of the police would be reduced. Therefore, gambling supervision would be transferred from the National Police Board to another authority. That is still the goal, but an increasingly tight schedule may cause the National Police Board to handle at least the transition phase and begin regulation of the new system. That would avoid the approximately 9-12 months of administrative work required to establish a new authority, which can be implemented sometime later.
At this stage, we still have to wait for official additional information and hope that the proposal of the legislation will be completed no later than the schedule I presented.
JARI VÄHÄNEN
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