Janne Nikkinen, a researcher at the University of Helsinki, made a comparison to Yle last week that has not been followed through. Sweden currently holds 89 gambling licences. Sweden has roughly twice Finland's population. Finland has 75 applications.

Follow it through and you get a number worth planning around.

The arithmetic

Sweden's 89 licences against a population of about 10.6 million is 8.4 licences per million people. Finland's population is 5.6 million. To match Sweden's density, Finland needs about 47 licences.

Forty-seven is 63 per cent of the 75 applications now filed. So the question for anyone sizing this market is narrow and answerable: does the National Police Board grant more than roughly three in five of the applications in front of it?

If it does, Finland opens more densely licensed per head than Sweden, in a market a little over half the size.

If every one of the 75 were granted, Finland would reach 13.4 licences per million, around 60 per cent denser than Sweden. Nobody expects that, and no decision has yet been made on any application. But the filing rate is rising rather than falling: 50 in June, 57 at the end of July, 75 by 22 September. There is no deadline and no statutory cap on the number of operators.

We are publishing the method rather than only the conclusion, because the inputs will move. Replace the licence count or the application count and the threshold moves with them.

Why density is the number that matters

Market size gets quoted. Density is what operators actually experience.

Finland's estimated total gross gambling revenue is around 1.9 billion euros, and Veikkaus keeps exclusivity over lotteries, scratchcards, physical slot machines and land-based casino games. The competitive pool is a fraction of the headline figure, and it is the fraction that gets divided by the number of licensees.

Three consequences follow, and they are already visible.

Acquisition gets expensive before it gets efficient. Nikkinen expects the opening to produce an intense advertising competition. Veikkaus has an extremely well-known brand; everyone else is building recognition from nothing, under rules that permit marketing only through an operator's own website and own social media accounts. No affiliates. No influencers. The few remaining routes are the ones everyone will be bidding for at once.

Sponsorship inventory is finite and it is being taken now. Nikkinen notes that Veikkaus holds a head start through long sponsorship agreements, and he expects sponsorship to generate a significant share of the disputes the new system produces. That is the context for FDJ United signing a league-wide Superpesis partnership in September, conditional on a licence it does not yet hold, nine months before the market opens. In a dense field, an exclusive tier-wide property bought early is one of the few durable advantages available.

Supplier demand scales with licensees, not with revenue. Every licensee needs a platform, payments, identification and regulatory reporting regardless of how small its share turns out to be. Seventy-five applicants is a procurement pipeline whether or not seventy-five businesses prove viable.

The counter-argument

Applications are not companies, and licences are not launches.

Nikkinen's own reading is that most of the applications probably come from different companies, but some groups have filed more than once: LeoVegas confirmed two applications, and Veikkaus has applied for both an exclusive licence and a competitive one. A field of 75 applications is therefore fewer than 75 brands, and fewer still once technical certification and the regulator's suitability assessment have run.

There is also no evidence yet about approval rates, because the Board has not decided a single application. Every number here is a projection from a filing count, not from an outcome.

The part a trade publication should say out loud

Nikkinen raises a point that is uncomfortable for everyone in this industry, including us.

If gambling companies become significant advertisers, he argues, it becomes harder for media to cover gambling harms independently. He also points out that near-daily coverage of lottery winners already functions as marketing, whatever its intent.

We publish our commercial formats and prices openly, we label every commercial placement, and we keep editorial control of sponsored research. We do that because the alternative is a trade press whose coverage of harm is shaped by who is buying. In a market about to add dozens of advertisers competing for a small number of channels, that pressure gets stronger, not weaker.

A separate policy paper from University of Helsinki researchers in the spring identified gambling marketing as the single largest risk factor in the new system, while also recognising that an over-strict marketing ban can push players towards the illegal market. Both of those can be true, and the Act has already chosen a side.

What we do not know

  • How many of the 75 applications will be granted. None has been decided.
  • How many distinct companies the 75 represent.
  • Whether Sweden's licence count, as cited, is current. We have used it as reported.
  • How many licensees will still be operating in Finland two years after the opening.

Our Licence Tracker carries the running application count and the six applicants identified so far.