Finland announces sweeping changes to gambling laws

[The Buzz]

In case you missed it, the Finnish government announced a number of changes to gambling laws back on 14 December. Most of the changes will come into force on 1 January 2022 while payment service provider blocking is set to begin in early 2023.

The new laws, broken down by Gambling Industry News, include:

PSP blocking scheme

This is a new addition to the law that allows The National Police Board (NPB) to block payments to gambling operators and individuals that have breached marketing prohibitions in the Lotteries Act (1047/2001).

The NPB has been informed that it will be allowed to start compiling a payment blocking list (black list) in 2022. However, blocking will only begin in early 2023. Only payments from residents of Finland to the blacklisted operators will be blocked. Any payments from the operator to the player will still be allowed to go through ensuring that players can withdraw their funds after an operator is blacklisted.

An administrative penalty system

A newly created penalty system will be used against operators and individuals that breach the marketing prohibitions in the Lotteries Act. Although penalties will be issued for breaches, the government has stated that these can be avoided if the infringing operator takes immediate and sufficient action following the initial breach.

More resources to the NPB

The government has made it clear that the NPB will have the required finding and resources to operate in a supervisory capacity over the gambling industry.

It remains to be seen how the NPB will allocate its supervision resources in the future. However, it will undoubtedly pay more attention to the marketing activities carried out

Read more here: https://gamblingindustrynews.com/new...w-reform-bill/

[Karri]

Some casinos/affiliate programs already decided this means you can't have Finnish texts on your site...which is insane.

[celena]

Some casinos/affiliate programs already decided this means you can't have Finnish texts on your site...which is insane.

Yes, I received emails to put everything in English!

[Karri]

Yes, I received emails to put everything in English!

I noticed said casinos kept their own websites in Finnish...are they panicking, or is this just a clever ploy to quickly cilmb the Google rankings at the expense of affiliates?

[celena]

I noticed said casinos kept their own websites in Finnish...are they panicking, or is this just a clever ploy to quickly cilmb the Google rankings at the expense of affiliates?

If it's forbidden in my opinion, they will remove the pages in Finnish.

[Karri]

If it's forbidden in my opinion, they will remove the pages in Finnish.

That's what the national monopoly wants of course, but it's mostly fear as they have no right to enforce it. On the other hand, they will probably try even if it wouldn't stand in a court of law...it sounds a bit nuts that the government can tell no one outside Finland can write ads in Finnish...and only the monopoly in Finland can do it for that matter.

I though the whole law was really aimed at streamers to be honest, as they tend to live in Finland.

[potentialeight]

That's what the national monopoly wants of course, but it's mostly fear as they have no right to enforce it. On the other hand, they will probably try even if it wouldn't stand in a court of law...it sounds a bit nuts that the government can tell no one outside Finland can write ads in Finnish...and only the monopoly in Finland can do it for that matter.

I though the whole law was really aimed at streamers to be honest, as they tend to live in Finland.

That's a weird bit of overreach. Is there a precedent of any other country or jurisdiction trying to do the same thing?

[CasinoVIPOffers]

Yes, saw that recently and it looks interesting.

[PaulP]

They tried this in Norway and it did not work out and why would it? There are so many online casinos targeting the Finnish market that it´s pretty much impossible to block all the transactions.

What we´ve seen so far is that the big stock listed companies have "bailed out" or asked to remove the FI-review/contents from the affiliate -sites. And this is actually what we expected to happen. This whole "blacklist" is IMO just to scare the operators and affiliates.

Anyways, let's say you use the brand name, let's call it XXXCasino, then probably it´s easy for banks to block the incoming transactions...however if the winnings are paid via 3rd party provider or some other company, then how do you block them.

It´s anyways interesting and this is just the first phase of eventually regulating the market. This is just something that buys more time for the Gambling Monopoly Veikkaus.

[BCGame Affiliates]

This is a really interesting move on their part. I would love to know why they made that move. While we can speculate on what the motive was, we will never really know.

[Karri]

This is a really interesting move on their part. I would love to know why they made that move. While we can speculate on what the motive was, we will never really know.

...of course we know. The motive is money. In short, that the monopoly doesn't lose any money abroad. The motive for the monopoly is to guarantee nice jobs for retired politicians.

[oncasidays]

So this is what Finland is all about.