The First Draft of the Finnish Gambling Regime Has Been Published – Outlook on the Blue-White Gambling System

The proposed key changes to the gambling system are:

• More lenient legislation on offering and marketing online gambling games
  
• A new gambling licensing system for B2C and B2B operators
  
• A new supervisory authority 

New licensing system

What is the timeline for the new proposal? 

The government proposal is to be submitted to Parliament during the spring term of 2025. The new gambling system would be introduced in stages. Applications for gambling licences could be submitted from the beginning of 2026 and licensed gambling operators could start offering games from the beginning of 2027. 

Veikkaus Oy would be allowed to continue its current operations as a monopoly until the end of 2026. This means that there would not be a previously discussed cooling-off period. It would also be possible to apply for a licence to provide gambling software from the beginning of 2027. 

The obligation to only procure services from a licenced software provider would apply from the beginning of 2028. In other words, B2C gambling games providers would only be allowed to provide their services to customers if the service is based on software that has been obtained from a licenced B2B gambling software provider. 

What licences would become available? 

The proposed law would establish a supervised licence system for the provision of B2C gambling games and B2B gambling software provision. The proposed licence system model would allow gambling companies to apply to the new licensing and supervisory authority for a licence to operate B2C gambling games in Finland or in B2B gambling software. B2C gambling games could be provided under an exclusive licence or a gambling games licence. B2B provision of gambling software would also require a separate licence. 

Which gambling operations could be applied for? 

A B2C gambling game licence could be applied for the operation of fixed-odds and variable-odds…