SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Finnish politicians and regulatory members have expressed concern regarding the impact of remote gambling operators on the country’s gambling market. Amongst the concerns are that the current Finnish gambling framework does not have the capabilities of monitoring remote gambling operators and protecting Finland’s consumers.
News source YLE.fi has estimated that Finland’s gambling industry generates some €1.7 billion in revenues per year. Finland is considered to be one of the most lucrative markets for online gambling operators to target, as Finnish gambling consumers have amongst the highest revenue yields in Europe.
Several politicians have expressed concern that Finland is lagging behind in monitoring and regulating remote operators, who appear to be free to target their national consumers. Furthermore concerns have been expressed on remote operators eating into the revenues and income of state gambling monopolies Raha-automaattiyhdistys (RAY), Veikkaus and Fintoto.
The stated owned gambling companies were set up as charitable organisations to help raise money for national causes. Many of Finland’s gambling stakeholders, have urged the government to stamp-out remote gambling enterprises targeting Finnish consumers and under cutting domestic firms.
Timo Kiiskinen, Senior Vice President of Business Operations at RAY stated
It’s clear that often customers will take the best deal when they’re considering gambling, this causes quite a headache for us, and the authorities should look at the issue more closely.
“Many international gambling sites are very aggressive with their direct marketing. And they make no effort to care for their customers. They can, for example, promise new customers €100 bonuses when they register”
Finland’s government has started to respond to the concerns expressed, in February Interior Legislative Director Katrrina Laitinen stated that her office would increase monitoring on remote operators. Furthermore the director commented that the office was aware of which sites were actively targeting its national consumers.
Promotion of online gambling products is illegal in Finland, however remote gambling operators have been able to bypass laws due to unclear protocol, use of digital advertising services, and promotion through international media channels.
Concerns of non-regulated igaming operator targeting national consumers has grown throughout the Nordic region, as both Swedish and Finnish state owned operators have seen declines in revenues and performance in 2014.
Furthermore Swedish and Norwegian regulators have asked for current gambling laws to be reviewed with a view to toughen advertising practices. Last week Lotteriinspektionen the Swedish gambling authority attained Apple Europe to withdraw online gambling apps from the Swedish IOS store, stating that the operators were breaching national laws. Withdrawn operator apps included William Hill, Unibet and bet365.
At present the Finnish government has not set publically a review on the matter of remote gambling practices. Finland’s Legislative ministry stated that it would not incriminate consumers who chose to wager on foreign operators.
