Finland Has 75 Gambling Licence Applications and Has Approved None

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.

• Finland's National Police Board had received 75 gambling licence applications by 22 September and had not yet decided any of them, it told the public broadcaster Yle
• That is up from the 50 applications the board reported in June; 24 arrived in March, when applications opened, and 23 in May
• The board now gives a processing time of six to eight months, against about six months in June, and each application carries a processing fee of €29,000 in 2026
• University of Helsinki researcher Janne Nikkinen said the earlier estimate was 40 to 60 applications, and compared the total with the 89 licences he said Sweden has
• The licensed market opens on 1 July 2027, ending the monopoly of Veikkaus on betting and online casino, with a lottery tax of 22% of gross gaming revenue

A Queue That Keeps Growing

Finland's National Police Board (Poliisihallitus), which will license and supervise the new market, had received 75 applications for gambling licences by 22 September, it told Yle, the Finnish public broadcaster. It had not approved any of them. Senior Adviser Sanna Kuusela told Yle by email that applications have been open since 1 March 2026, that most arrived in the first three months, with 24 in March and 23 in May, and that there is no deadline: operators can keep applying, and the law does not cap the number of licensees.

The count has risen by half since June, when the board said it had received 50 and estimated processing at about six months. It now puts the processing time at six to eight months, according to Yle. In June the board said the fee for processing an application in 2026 is €29,000, that assessment starts only once the fee is paid, and that applicants' reliability and suitability are judged on documents such as register extracts and certificates. Senior Inspector Juha Katainen said then that the work was made harder because most applicants are foreign.

One application is known by name. Joel Häkämies, who runs FDJ United's Finnish operations, told Yle that Unibet applied in May and has not yet been approved. Unibet has nevertheless signed a sponsorship deal with Superpesis, the top division of Finnish baseball, which Yle reports as the first large Finnish sports league to partner with a foreign betting company.

More Applicants Than Expected

Janne Nikkinen, a University of Helsinki researcher who studies gambling regulation, told Yle that "40 to 60 was roughly the estimate earlier, and even that was considered a little optimistic" (our translation). He compared the total with Sweden, which he said has 89 licences with roughly twice Finland's population, and said, in Yle's Finnish, that the country "is attracting interest" because a pot worth billions is now being shared out.

Nikkinen cautioned that 75 applications is not necessarily 75 companies, since one operator can apply for separate licences for different game types, each with its own fee, although he expects most to come from different firms. He has not seen the applications. The new regime taxes operators at 22% of gross gaming revenue, according to Yle, against a remote gambling rate in neighbouring Estonia of 5.5% this year that is due to fall to 4% by 2029.

The Processing Time Is Now the Real Deadline

With the market opening on 1 July 2027, a six-to-eight-month review means an application filed today would be decided around April or May, and one filed at the turn of the year would be decided close to launch or after it. The board's warning that processing may take longer makes the early applicants, the 47 that arrived in March and May, the likely first cohort. That matters more in Finland than in most re-regulated markets because the incumbent is so strong: Veikkaus has been the only legal provider for decades, and the licensed newcomers need time before launch to secure payment partners, test platforms and plan marketing. An operator that receives its licence in June 2027 starts the market already behind.

Sponsorship Is Arriving Before the Licences

The Superpesis agreement shows how the market will be contested. Brands with no Finnish licence are already buying visibility in Finnish sport, on the expectation that they will be licensed by the time it counts. Nikkinen expects a surge in gambling advertising once 75 applicants compete with a single, well-known incumbent, and he has questioned whether commercial media that depend on that advertising will stay willing to report critically on gambling. If 75 applications become even 50 licensees, the channelisation case for the reform will be tested against the harm case within months of launch, much as it was in Sweden after 2019.

Finland has attracted more interest than its own forecasts assumed. What it has not yet shown is that it can process that interest before the market opens.