At the SBC show in Lisbon last week, attendees were treated to a topical discussion concerning the future of licensed online gambling in Finland. Finnplay’s Managing Director Jaakko Soininen moderated an expert panel of top operators which included; Dainis Niedra Chief Operating Officer, Enlabs (Entain), Sverker Skogberg Senior Vice President, Public Affairs, PAF, Rolf SimsHead of Corporate Affairs, Kindred Group, and Antti Tiihonen Member of the Board, Vana Lauri OÜ.
In general the operators expressed optimism about the state of the legislative process, and the simple fact that the government has been moving forward as committed and laying the groundwork for the coming license system. There was also a shared hope that the legislation can reflect the best learnings from neighbouring markets like Sweden, Denmark and The Netherlands, while avoiding some of the early mistakes made by regulators in those jurisdictions.
The main concerns centred around the marketing restrictions - specifically mass media, bonuses and affiliation. Regarding mass marketing, there is a concern that the current legislation puts operators and media companies in a “prisoner’s dilemma”, wherein to be competitive, the media companies are competitively obligated to sell as much as they can, and the operators have the same incentive to outspend their rivals. The result will be similar to what happened in Sweden in 2019, when overnight, the media space became saturated with gambling advertisements, and the result was a severe backlash from the public. Under the current draft legislation, an identical scenario will play out in Finland. And the timing will not be ideal, given that the market is likely to begin officially in January 2027, and a Finnish national election will be occurring shortly afterwards in April. The risk of souring public sentiment and damaging the industry’s reputation in its first steps will be high.
So while the mass media marketing has been left largely unrestricted, the B2C marketing tools such as bonuses and affiliation are set to be blocked. The panel agreed that these measures will place a significant and unreasonable handicap on licensed operators. Since the stated aim of the legislative process is to maximise player safety and the channelisation rate in Finland, it’s counterproductive to tie the operator’s hands, while non-licensed competitors are unrestricted in using these powerful tools. One panelist remarked, “What will I as an operator get with the license? After paying 22% in taxes and regulatory fees, how will the regulator ensure that it is worthwhile?” And continued with enlightening experience from other market on the size of the black market operators, even if channelisation numbers look to good. Highlighting the regulators’ need to ensure that the licensed operators have proper room for to business.
Another panelist commented that if the rules will follow the monopoly regulation and there is therefore no expectation the results change dramatically.
In conclusion, the panel agreed that without changes to the marketing aspects of the draft legislation, it will be impossible to achieve the desired channelisation rate in Finland. In spite of that, all the operators expressed their commitment to entering the market - however the final shape of the legislation will determine how wide and how deeply they will invest. There is still an opportunity now as the draft legislation undergoes the review process for the legislators to make changes to reflect the collective experience of industry leaders to ensure Finland, having learned from those who came before, has the most successful license regime in Europe. And in closing the panelists placed a vote of confidence in the pragmatism of Finnish lawmakers to strike the right balance between maximum player safety and competitiveness.