The National Police Board's gambling administration published its 2026 enforcement figures on 14 October. Four prohibition decisions, six conditional fines ordered paid.

The headline number is not in that summary. It is in the size of the fines attached to the prohibitions.

  • Attached to individuals: 30,000 to 200,000 euros.
  • Attached to companies: 100,000 euros to 1.2 million euros.
  • Actually ordered paid: 20,000 to 100,000 euros, and every one of them against a natural person.

The regulator has attached seven-figure sums to companies and collected five-figure sums from people. That gap is the story.

The 1.2 million euro case has a name

On 31 August the Board ordered MagicPoro Ltd to stop marketing gambling to Finnish consumers online and on social media, and to remove the material already published. The decision covers the Pelikaani, Pelikioski, Bigwin and Pottila brands.

MagicPoro is registered in Cyprus, incorporated in 2022, and operates on an Estonian licence.

What the Board found is worth reading closely, because it is a specification rather than an accusation: Finnish-language casino reviews, brand logos, presentation of bonuses, and links directing readers to gaming sites. It also found paid social media advertising targeted at Finland.

That is a description of affiliate content.

The regulator has now said it plainly

In the 14 October statement the Board sets out what can constitute gambling marketing: article-form content, links, logos, bonuses and other publishing that increases visibility or demand.

Article-form content. Links. Logos. Bonuses. There is no version of a casino review site that avoids all four.

The Board also restates the baseline that is easy to forget while everyone plans for 2027: only Veikkaus may market gambling in mainland Finland until 30 June 2027. Everything else is unlawful now, whoever is doing it and from wherever.

A court has paused it

Around 9 October a Finnish administrative court suspended enforcement of both the prohibition and the 1.2 million euro fine pending appeal. MagicPoro's addition to the Board's payment-blocking list is on hold with it.

The suspension decides nothing about whether the Board's decision was lawful. The court will hear the substantive appeal later.

But it establishes something useful about the mechanics: a company with the resources to litigate can pause a Finnish marketing prohibition, the fine attached to it, and the payment block, for as long as the appeal takes. An individual streamer, on the evidence of the figures above, cannot.

That is the most plausible explanation for the collection gap. It is not that the Board is unwilling to pursue companies. It is that companies appeal and people do not.

What this means for an applicant

Seventy-five companies have applications pending. Several of them have Finnish-language content, Finnish partners or Finnish-facing brands in the market right now.

  • Affiliate content aimed at Finland is unlawful today, not from July 2027. The prohibition applies under the current Lotteries Act. An applicant whose partners are still publishing Finnish casino reviews is generating a record while its own suitability is being assessed.
  • Enforcement during the transition is relevant to the licence decision. Nordic Law's Heikki Koivula has made this point, and the Board has had seven months of applications in which to observe applicants' conduct.
  • Appealing is not free even when it works. MagicPoro has bought time. It has also put its name on a published enforcement decision, in the period when an authority is forming a view of who is fit to hold a licence.
  • The payment block is the real threat. Suspended here, but a listed company cannot take money from Finnish players through compliant payment providers. That is a commercial outcome, not a legal one.

The claim this tests

Antti Koivula, chief compliance officer at the applicant Hippos ATG, said recently that it is naive to believe affiliate marketing will disappear from Finland or that affiliates will stop targeting it.

He is probably right about behaviour. The 14 October statement is the regulator's answer about consequences: the content is marketing, the sums attached run to seven figures, and the only thing currently standing between a company and a payment block is an appeal it has to fund.

Corrections to our earlier reporting

We previously reported five prohibition decisions in 2026, sourced to Iltalehti. The Board's own figure is four. We also described 100,000 euros as the largest fine of the year; it is the largest ordered paid. The largest attached is 1.2 million. Both corrections are logged.

What we do not know

  • Whether any company has ever had a conditional fine ordered paid in a Finnish gambling marketing case.
  • When the administrative court will hear MagicPoro's substantive appeal.
  • Whether MagicPoro or its brands appear among the 75 licence applications.
  • How many of the four 2026 prohibitions were against companies rather than individuals.