Veikkaus

Finland's state-owned gambling company will run a new brand built on Viaplay's sports content in its home market and in Denmark from 1 July 2027. It is Veikkaus's first consumer business outside Finland, and the announcement is silent on the licences the brand will need.

Finland's licensing authority has given its first official count of awards for the market that opens on 1 July 2027, three times the number operators had announced. Only three of the 12 licensees can be matched to a known operator.

European Entertainment Group's ComeOn and the Helsinki newcomer SuomiVeto say Finland's National Police Board has licensed them for the market that opens on 1 July 2027, joining Hippos ATG and Wildz. SuomiVeto has published its licence number and decision date, while the board has yet to publish a list of licensees.

Malta-based Wildz Group says Finland's National Police Board has granted it a five-year gambling licence starting on 1 July 2027, the first award any operator has announced under the new regime. The board has not confirmed it, and a year ago it was weighing a marketing prohibition against the same group that would have ruled it out.

Applications to Finland's National Police Board have risen by half since June, beating researchers' estimates, but processing now takes six to eight months and the market opens on 1 July 2027. The first licences will decide who can advertise to Finns first.

The Dutch cabinet has dropped its plan to raise the online slots age to 21 and instead bet its five-year strategy on a near-total ad ban and a market-wide deposit cap. The gamble: deepen protection inside the licensed market without pushing players, and their money, to the black market.

Veikkaus has tightened gambling loss checkpoints for under-25s but scrapped the annual limit for older players, days before Finland's monopoly opens to licensed competition. The carve-out for its highest-spending customers exposes the tension between safer gambling and defending market share ahead of 2027.

Finland has drawn roughly 50 licence applications since its window opened in March, already matching the ceiling industry observers projected for the entire market and reached more than a year before the 1 July 2027 launch that ends Veikkaus's monopoly. Officials say most applicants are foreign, while operators await detail on advertising, bonusing and enforcement.

Finland's state-owned operator Veikkaus has signalled ambitions to become a respected international gaming group by 2030, as its full-year 2025 results reveal declining domestic revenues and its B2B arm Fennica Gaming posts near-doubled turnover across 17 global markets all ahead of Finland's licensed market launch in July 2027.

Leading gambling operators SkillOnNet and Wildz Group have rejected Finland's proposed universal loss limits, warning that overly strict rules will drive players to the black market. Citing the failures of the German regulatory model, the companies argue that the new legal framework must remain competitive to ensure high channelisation rates when the market opens in 2027.

The conflict highlights the immense tension within the Nordic gambling sector as Finland prepares to dismantle its state monopoly. While Veikkaus maintains its actions are lawful, the investigation by the FCCA will determine whether an incumbent can legally fortify its position against future rivals before the market even opens.

Finland is scrambling to fix a regulatory oversight that turned gifted scratch cards into worthless bits of cardboard, all while preparing for the biggest gambling market liberalisation in its history.

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