Online gambling law and regulation in Finland

The state owned Veikkaus Oy operates a monopoly over authorised gambling in Finland. The provision of online services is interpreted under Finnish law as another distribution channel rather than a distinct service in its own right.

On 5 January 2023 Finland's Ministry of the Interior set up a research project to investigate alternative gambling systems to Veikkaus' monopoly regime, in particular with regard to digital gambling. The aim of the project is to assess the current state of the monopoly system in relation to the objectives laid down in the Finnish Lotteries Act (1047/2001, as amended), to review the gambling systems existing in the other EU countries and to assess the social advantages and disadvantages of different gambling systems in order to provide a situation analysis of alternative models of gambling systems to support policymaking. The project will identify the regulatory, legal, marketing and other changes that would be required to allow a possible transition to a licensed gambling system for digital gambling.