Finland's iGaming market in numbers
Opening date, licence applications, regulatory milestones and market-entry developments. Every figure carries its source and date.
Market timeline
The Ministry of the Interior drafts the proposal to replace the gambling monopoly with a partial licensing system and opens it for public consultation.
Government bill HE 16/2025 vp, proposing a partial licensing model for online betting and casino, is submitted to Parliament.
Parliament adopts the Gambling Act, ending Veikkaus's exclusivity over online betting and casino from July 2027.
The President of the Republic confirms the Gambling Act, which enters the statute book as Act 10/2026.
Chapters 2 and 9 and selected sections of the Gambling Act 10/2026 enter into force. The National Police Board begins receiving licence applications. The application fee is €29,000.
Veikkaus establishes two subsidiaries, separating exclusive-licence operations from the business that will compete in the licensed market.
The National Police Board's Gambling Administration reports 50 licence applications received, the majority from companies based outside Finland. Officials have since given two different processing times: six to eight months, and three to six months.
The National Police Board tells Yle it has received 75 licence applications, up from 50 in June, and confirms it has not decided any of them. Senior inspector Sanna Kuusela restates that there is no deadline for filing and no statutory limit on the number of operators.
The Gambling Act enters into force in full. Licensed operators may offer and market betting, online casino, online slots and online money bingo. The Lupa- ja valvontavirasto, Finland's Licensing and Supervision Agency, takes over licensing and supervision from the National Police Board. Gambling software licence applications open.
Licensed operators may only use gambling software supplied by licensed software providers.
Money lotteries, pools, scratchcards, physical slot machines and land-based casino games remain under an exclusive licence held by a state-owned company, in practice Veikkaus or a subsidiary. Betting, online casino, online slots and online money bingo open to competition. Horse-race betting also opens.
Finland has no published target. Its neighbours do.
Share of gambling captured by the regulated system. Sweden and Denmark publish official estimates. The Finnish figure is the offshore share stated by the Veikkaus chief executive in 2022, inverted, and no official Finnish target has been set.
Hiring signals
Operators hire in a recognisable order: country leadership first, compliance next, customer service last. Where a company sits in that sequence is public, and it usually becomes visible months before the company says anything about a licence. Every entry names its source and carries a confidence tier. Appointments that did not hold are kept rather than deleted.
See all hiring signals →