Finland will open its online gambling market to licensed competition on 1 July 2027, and the argument over how tightly to write the rules has moved out of industry consultations and into Finnish mainstream commentary. The question is channelisation: whether a licensed Finnish market built around strict marketing and bonus limits will hold players who can already reach offshore sites.
A Helsinki Times op-ed made that case using Sweden as the reference point. Sweden’s channelisation rate for 2025 came in at 84%, according to Spelinspektionen, the Swedish Gambling Authority. That is a drop of one percentage point year on year, seven years after the Swedish market opened.
What changes on 1 July 2027
The Finnish Gambling Act ends Veikkaus’ exclusive rights to online casino games and sports betting. From that date, privately licensed operators can offer fixed-odds betting, pari-mutuel wagering, online casino games, e-bingo and online slots to Finnish players. Veikkaus keeps exclusivity over lottery products, scratch cards, physical slot machines and casino table games, and will continue to operate inside the new system.
Supervision changes at the same time. Licensing and enforcement duties pass from the National Police Board to a new Licensing and Supervisory Authority, which will handle operator vetting, compliance monitoring and sanctions.
Applications opened on 1 March 2026 and are being processed by the National Police Board in the interim, with a stated target processing time of three to six months and first licences expected in autumn 2026. Twenty-four applications had been filed by early April 2026, with the count rising since. Domestic participation has been limited so far, and most of the interest has come from European operators and sportsbooks weighing the regulatory outlook before committing.
Marketing and bonus rules are the sticking point
Operators have consistently flagged the same issue: parts of the advertising and responsible gambling framework were still unsettled when the application window opened, which has affected when companies file. Restrictions on gambling marketing and bonuses sit at the centre of that uncertainty, because both determine how visible and how competitive a licensed Finnish offer will be against sites that face no such limits.
Licensing improves transparency and gives Finnish authorities enforcement tools they do not currently have over private operators. It does not by itself move players. That distinction is what the Swedish data now demonstrates, and it is the reason Finnish commentary has started borrowing Swedish numbers. The same pattern is playing out elsewhere in Europe, with Austria preparing to end its own online monopoly and facing an identical set of design choices.
What Sweden’s 84% actually contains
The Swedish headline figure is an average of two measurement methods. Player surveys produced an estimate of 89%, while internet traffic turnover estimates produced 78%. The gap widens by vertical. Surveys put sports betting channelisation at 89% against 81% for online casino. Traffic estimates put sports betting at 95% and online casino at just 68%.
Spelinspektionen estimates the Swedish black market generates SEK 3.6bn to SEK 7.3bn in revenue on gross turnover of SEK 60bn to SEK 120bn. Players who are self-excluded or suspended from licensed sites are the main users of unlicensed platforms, followed by players who believe unlicensed sites give better odds of winning or who want games unavailable in the regulated market. Skin betting sites accounted for 35% of all visits to unlicensed websites in 2025, though the regulator excludes them from its official channelisation indicators.
Sweden set its target at a minimum of 90% when the market opened in 2019 and now has around 100 active licences, a marketing framework and the Spelpaus national self-exclusion register. The regulator itself has since suggested the 90% goal may have been set too high. Global estimates point the same way, with unregulated online gambling turnover reaching $5.9tn in 2025.
The enforcement argument Finland inherits
The Swedish Trade Association for Online Gambling (BOS) called the 2025 rate too low and criticised the pace of legislative response.
“I am surprised that the government has still not presented legislative proposals concerning the scope of the Gambling Act and how the promotion ban against unlicensed operators can be strengthened. Several measures that would make it more difficult for unlicensed gambling companies to target Swedish consumers have already been thoroughly examined by the government. The question is: what are they waiting for?” said Daniel Valiollahi, Deputy Secretary General at BOS.
A government inquiry led by Marcus Isgren proposed removing the directional criterion, which requires proof that an unlicensed operator specifically targets Sweden before action can be taken, and replacing it with a participant criterion. The inquiry also recommended stronger enforcement powers, including instructing banks and payment service providers to block transactions to unlicensed operators.
Costs on the licensed side have moved in the other direction. Swedish operators holding both a commercial online casino licence and a betting licence now pay separate annual fees of SEK 240,000 for each. Denmark has taken a similarly restrictive turn on advertising, as set out in our review of the Danish market in 2025.
Twelve months to settle the detail
Finland has until July 2027 to finalise the marketing and bonus rules that will decide whether its licensed offer competes on day one. The Swedish evidence points at online casino as the vertical where channelisation slips first, and at self-excluded players as the group most likely to leave the regulated market. Both are directly shaped by the rules Finland is still writing.
The applications filed so far will show how the industry reads those odds. Operators that hold back until the framework is published will be the clearest signal that the terms are not yet attractive enough.
Source: Spelinspektionen
