Newly appointed Finnish government takes stand on gambling monopoly

Talk about hitting the ground running.

Today, the current Finnish Government will resign and the new one will be appointed, but it’s already made a statement in the world of gambling. The new government announced that it’s committed to ending the current monopoly system for gambling in favor of a licensing model by 2026.

Currently, Veikkaus Oy, is the Finnish national betting agency and it’s held the exclusive betting license on lotteries and sports betting since 2017 when Veikkaus merged with RAY and Fintoto. And while Veikkaus surely isn’t pleased by this news, it isn’t exactly shocked as a study released in April by the outgoing Government recommended that the monopoly system needed to be overhauled.

While it’s not known yet exactly how the new system will look in the end, the new Government said there will be online casino and sports betting licenses with a mandatory and singular self-exclusion option as part of the licensing requirements.

“The introduction of the license model must be based on a careful investigation of the social effects of the reform and especially its effects on the prevalence of gambling problems,” said the government.