Finland published the licence register, and it answers a question we said we could not answer

Nineteen holders, numbers L101 to L119, 63 applications still pending and nothing rejected. The register answers the licence-numbering question we said we would not guess at, shows that the first company to announce was not the first to be granted, and makes clear that 19 licences are not 19 competitors.

The National Police Board announced on 29 October that it had granted the first gambling licences under the new Act, to 18 companies. It also did something it had given no indication it would do: it published the list.

The register now carries 19 licence holders with numbers running RALU/2027/L101 to L119. Licences are valid 1 July 2027 to 30 June 2032 unless otherwise stated. A further 63 applications are pending, and no application has been rejected.

Correction: we said this register did not exist

We have written repeatedly that the Board publishes no licence outcomes and had given no indication it would, and that the market would therefore have to be reconstructed from what licensees chose to disclose. We said it as recently as 25 October.

That was wrong, and the error ran through several pieces. The register exists, it is public, and it is updated as licences are granted. Our own tracker is now the derivative source and the Board's list is the primary one. Logged in our corrections log.

The licence number was a sequence after all

When Hippos ATG published its decision document we recorded its licence number, RALU/2027/L108, and wrote that we did not know what the 108 counted and would not guess.

It counts licences, from 101.

That resolves the question and makes the register readable in a way a bare list is not. The numbers are issue order, so the sequence shows who was processed when.

What the sequence actually shows

Wildz Group announced on 15 October that it had received the first Finnish licence. Its Finnish entity, Granturo Finland Ltd, holds L107.

Six licences were numbered before it.

Wildz was first to announce, which is not the same as first to be granted. Cloudberry Ent Limited holds L101. On the dates compiled from the Board's applicant list, several licences were issued on 15 October itself.

This matters beyond bragging rights. Anyone reading operator announcements as a proxy for regulatory progress has been reading a publicity sequence, not a processing one. The register is the only account of the latter.

Nineteen licences is not nineteen competitors

The list reads as a field of 19. It is not.

Compiled group attributions put at least three of the holders under Nordplay Group, at least three under Blixx Gaming, and a further cluster under ComeOn Group. Several operators applied through multiple Finnish entities, which is permitted and which each cost 29,000 euros.

So the competitive field is meaningfully smaller than the licence count, and the licence count will keep overstating it as more are granted. Anyone sizing this market from the register needs to map entities to groups first.

We have written before on what the density of the field implies. This is the correction to that arithmetic: licences per capita overstates operators per capita.

Veikkaus is not on the list

The state operator applied for both an exclusive licence and a competitive-market licence. Neither appears among the first 19.

We draw no conclusion from that. The Board processes applications as they become complete, the exclusive licence is a different instrument on a different timetable, and nothing has been rejected. But the incumbent being absent from the first tranche is a fact worth recording, and it is the kind of fact the register now makes checkable.

A licence is not permission to start

The Board states it plainly: companies that have been granted a licence may begin operating and marketing gambling no earlier than 1 July 2027.

That is worth stating clearly because the commercial temptation runs the other way. A licensed operator now has a verified, public, citable status and eight months before it may use it. Content that directs play, operator logos, bonus presentation and affiliate links remain unlawful for everyone until the market opens, licence or no licence.

The Board has issued four marketing prohibitions this year and attached conditional fines of up to 1.2 million euros to companies. Holding a licence does not move that line; it only means you now have something further to lose when it is crossed.

What the register changes operationally

Verification becomes mechanical. An operator's Finnish status can be checked against a licence number rather than taken from a press release. Any system that gates commercial activity on licensed status should key on the register entry, not on a company's own claim.
The data model needs the licence number. Legal entity, brands, licence number, game types, validity period and last verification date are now all available and all stable. A list keyed on brand alone will not survive the group structures described above.
The pending 63 are a known pipeline. Every one of them becomes a register entry or a rejection, and so far there have been no rejections.

How many applications are there now

Nineteen granted plus 63 pending is 82. Separately, iGaming Business reported 79 applications as at 26 October, and a compiled applicant list dated 28 October carried 84.

The figures do not reconcile exactly, which is normal for a count that moves daily and is reported on different dates. We record 82 as the implied total from the Board's own 29 October statement and note the others.

What we do not know

Which company holds L119, or when the nineteenth was added.
Whether the Board intends to publish rejections as well as grants.
The full group structure behind the 19 holders. Attributions above are compiled from secondary sources.
When Veikkaus's applications will be decided.

Our Licence Tracker is being rebuilt against the register. Until that is complete, the Board's own list is the authoritative source and we link to it rather than competing with it.