Finland’s gambling market opens to private operators on 1 July 2027. H2 Gambling Capital reports total GGR of €1.9 billion in 2026, with 81% from online channels and participation levels among the highest in the world. 24 operators had already filed B2C licence applications by the end of March, with 40-50 licensees expected at launch.
A decade of decline: Why the monopoly had to end
The reform corrects a decade of structural failure. State monopoly Veikkaus saw gross gaming revenue collapse from €1.8 billion in 2017 to €931 million in 2025 as Finnish players migrated to operators serving the market via the EEA framework. Channelisation fell from roughly 90% a decade ago to approximately 50% today. Parliament voted 158 to 9 in December 2025 to end the monopoly era.
The intent is clear: bring that offshore spend back into a regulated domestic framework. However, this framework has a structural problem that risks defeating that goal before launch. Finland’s new licensing rules ban affiliate marketing outright, prohibit influencer promotions, restrict social media to operators’ own channels, and ban acquisition bonuses, though final rules on regulated retention bonuses for existing customers remain poorly defined.
Marketing is directed toward traditional mass media and sports sponsorships. This creates an immediate omnichannel advantage for Veikkaus, whose brand is embedded in daily Finnish life: petrol stations, supermarkets, and television. More critically, Veikkaus enters the open market with a mature CRM database built from its retail loyalty programme.
Compulsory identification has strengthened this database by combining online and offline data into a single profile since 2022, when the Veikkaus card became mandatory across all channels, fully implemented by 2024. Incoming operators start from zero, with their acquisition channels tied behind their backs.
The 24,000-search paradox
The search data makes the paradox concrete. “Pay N Play” and “no-registration casino” searches in Finland grew 185% year-on-year in 2025 and peaked at more than 58,000 in a single month in January 2026, immediately following the reform’s passage.
Ahrefs data tracked by Kasinohai shows that players in Finland currently conduct over 9,600 monthly searches for uudet kasinot (new casinos) and more than 24,200 searches for no-registration casino terms. These queries are dominated by affiliate comparison sites.
Under the new framework, Finnish-licensed operators cannot appear on casino affiliate sites. Every one of those 24,200 monthly searches is effectively a referral pipeline to the offshore market, i.e., the precise outcome the reform was designed to reverse.
Industry voices sound the alarm
The industry has not been quiet. Antti Koivula, chief compliance officer at new market entrant Hippos ATG, described the approach as “schizophrenic” in comments to iGaming Business in April 2026, a regime that restricts targeted digital acquisition while leaving mass media advertising largely unrestricted. Finnish gambling consultants have warned that affiliate platforms will not disappear post-launch; they will continue directing Finnish traffic toward EEA-licensed operators, now without domestic licensees competing for those referrals.
Bridging the gap between policy and reality
The reform’s stated goals, such as higher channelisation and reduced gambling harm, both require the same outcome: Finnish players on licensed platforms. The affiliate ban works against both. Whether guidance issued before July 2027 closes these gaps will determine whether Finland’s liberalisation achieves what the parliamentary consensus intended.
