50 operators line up for Finnish gambling licence
- Finland’s National Police Board has now received 50 B2C gambling licence applications, with the majority coming from foreign companies.
- The application count has doubled since late March, when 24 submissions had been recorded following the window opening on 1 March 2026.
- The Finnish market is valued at an estimated €1.9bn in total gross gaming revenue for 2026, according to H2 Gambling Capital.
Finland’s B2C gambling licence process has drawn around 50 applications to date, according to the National Police Board’s Gambling Administration, with the authority confirming this week that foreign operators account for the majority of submissions.
Following parliament’s passage of the Gambling Act in December 2025, President Alexander Stubb signed the legislation on 16 January 2026, confirming a competitive market launch on 1 July 2027 and ending Veikkaus Oy’s long-standing monopoly over online casino games, fixed-odds betting, slots, and e-bingo.
Applications double in weeks
Official data from the National Police Board showed 24 operators had submitted applications by 30 March, just weeks after the window opened. The authority’s Gambling Administration has since confirmed the total has reached around 50, as reported by Finnish-language outlet SuomalainenLisenssi.
That figure has already met the projection analysts were making at launch. Industry insiders had estimated approximately 40–50 total licensees would be operational at market launch, with each licence potentially covering multiple brands.
Juha Katainen, senior advisor at the National Police Board, said:
“The majority of applicants are foreign companies, which increases the complexity of processing and evaluating their submissions.”
He added that reliability and suitability assessments draw on submitted documents including corporate register extracts, certificates and various reports, and that affiliated companies’ financial positions are subject to scrutiny where they may affect the financing of operations.
A market ripe for competition
The channelisation rate in Finland stands at around 50%, down from roughly 90% a decade ago. Veikkaus recorded a GGR of €931m in 2025, a sharp decline from €1.8bn in 2017, as Finnish players increasingly shifted to offshore alternatives.
According to H2 Gambling Capital, Finland’s total estimated market GGR reached €1.9bn in 2026, with €1.1bn from gaming, €269m from betting, and €456m from lottery. Around 81% of total estimated GGR came through online channels.
Finnish authorities have not published a full applicant list. One confirmed applicant is Hippos ATG Oy, a joint venture between Sweden’s AB Trav och Galopp and Finland’s Suomen Hippos, covering sports betting, online casino games, and horse racing.
Major European groups including Entain, Flutter Entertainment, Kindred (FDJ United), LeoVegas, and Betsson are understood to be among those that have applied or announced their intention to do so.
The pace of submissions has prompted questions about market saturation. Antti Koivula, chief compliance officer at Hippos ATG, said:
“It’s a rather small country to add a lot of operators into the mix.”
Jarkko Nordlund, head of icasino and sportsbook at Veikkaus, has also called for greater regulatory clarity ahead of launch:
“The law is fine. Now everyone is begging a bit, like, what are the definitions of the law? We still don’t know how we’re able to use bonusing, what advertising is allowed, what media is allowed, duty of care, player protection. Everyone is pro licensed market, but we would love to have the nitty gritty details.”
Compliance and costs
Applicants must pay a €29,000 processing fee, with substantive evaluation beginning only after payment is settled. All operators are subject to a 22% GGR tax on gambling revenue, alongside standard Finnish corporate income tax on net profits.
An annual supervision fee applies on a tiered basis, ranging from €4,000 for operators generating under €100,000 in annual GGR, up to €434,000 for those recording at least €50m.
The licensing window has no fixed deadline and applications are accepted on a rolling basis. The Police Board is targeting a processing time of approximately six months per application and has asked applicants to avoid frequent status enquiries, which divert resources from evaluation work.
Regulatory oversight transfers to the newly established Finnish Supervisory Authority on 1 July 2027. B2B supplier licensing opens separately from that date, with mandatory use of licensed software required from 1 January 2028.
Veikkaus retains exclusive rights over lotteries, scratch cards, and land-based gaming under the new framework, though a company within the Veikkaus Group may also apply to compete in the liberalised online segments. The state-owned operator has also been exploring a potential IPO as part of its broader restructuring ahead of the transition.
With applications already matching pre-launch projections and first licences expected before year-end, operators and suppliers now face a narrowing window to secure their position in a €1.9bn market that has been building toward this moment for the better part of a decade.
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