Two days after the National Police Board set out that bonuses, logos, links and article-form content can all constitute gambling marketing, Finnish-language casino advertising offering a 500 euro bonus was running on the websites of Iltalehti, Helsingin Sanomat and Hufvudstadsbladet.

Rahapelisanomat documented the placements with screenshots. The advertising is unlawful: only Veikkaus may market gambling in mainland Finland until 30 June 2027.

The publishers did not sell it directly, and that is the point.

How an illegal ad reaches a national newspaper

Programmatic buying places advertising automatically. An advertiser or its buying platform bids for inventory matching its targeting rules; the publisher offers that inventory through its own ad system or partners; an auction decides what appears. No contract between the newspaper and the casino is required at any point.

Riikka-Maria Lemminki, chief executive of Marketing Finland, told Rahapelisanomat that media companies run algorithms and detection mechanisms to identify unlawful advertising, whether gambling or alcohol.

Robin Andersson, who leads digital business at Bonnier News, said HBL does not accept casino advertising, monitors the ad stream actively and blocks such ads immediately on detection. He added that advertising contrary to its rules can occasionally get through programmatic before the systems identify it, and that the Hype Kasino advertisement has now been blocked.

That is a credible account of how this happens. It is also an account of a control that works after the impression has been served.

Cloaking is sold as a service

There is a second mechanism, and it is deliberate.

Cloaking shows one version of a page to an ad platform's reviewer and another to the user. The creative or landing page passes review while the content actually delivered is different.

Cloaking is not automatically unlawful. In gambling advertising it is a strong indicator that an advertiser is working around a platform's review or blocking systems. Rahapelisanomat notes that cloaking is openly marketed within gambling advertising services.

A publisher's category blocks are only as good as the identifiers the systems can see. Against an advertiser using cloaking, they are being asked to detect something engineered not to be detected.

The problem gets harder in July 2027, not easier

This is the part nobody has addressed.

Today a Finnish publisher can block gambling as a category. The rule is binary and the instruction is simple: no casino advertising.

From 1 July 2027, newspapers become a permitted channel for licensed operators. Some gambling advertising becomes legal, and the rest stays illegal. The publisher's control therefore has to change from blocking a category to verifying a licence, at auction speed, on an advertiser identity that programmatic supply chains are not built to guarantee.

A Finnish media house will need to know, for every gambling impression it serves, whether that specific advertiser holds a Finnish licence. There is no obvious technical mechanism for this today. The licence register will exist; the pipe between it and an ad exchange does not.

Unlicensed operators will have an incentive to impersonate licensed ones, because for the first time there will be licensed ones to impersonate.

What the advertiser side should take from this

  • You may already be advertising illegally in Finland without knowing. If an agency or affiliate is running broad Nordic programmatic campaigns, Finnish impressions are plausible. The Board's October statement makes clear that bonuses and indirect marketing count.
  • This creates a record while your application is pending. Seventy-five applications are being assessed on reliability and suitability. Conduct during the transition is relevant to that assessment.
  • Geotargeting exclusions are a compliance control, not a media setting. They should be documented, audited and owned by someone who can evidence them to a regulator.
  • Ask your buying partners about cloaking explicitly. It is marketed as a service in this industry. An agency that uses it on your behalf has created your exposure, not its own.

The brands behind the advertising

Hype Kasino's website names a Belize company, Feature Buy Ltd, as operator. Review sites connect it to the Estonian company Hitz Gaming OÜ, and the sites state licences in Estonia and Anjouan.

Hitz Gaming OÜ was registered in 2021. The Estonian company register records its sole shareholder as Houseedge Ventures Limited of Cyprus, holding 100 per cent.

Sweden's regulator ordered Hitz Gaming OÜ in July 2024 to stop directing gambling at Sweden without a Swedish licence.

Advertising for Daler, Slottimonsteri and Bet Ninja was also observed. Rahapelisanomat discloses that Hitz Gaming, Daler Casino and Slottimonsteri are among its own commercial partners, and that the article is not connected to that cooperation. We note the disclosure because it is the right way to handle the conflict, and because the finding is verifiable from the screenshots regardless.

What we do not know

  • Who bought the inventory, and through which demand-side platform.
  • Whether the campaigns targeted Finland deliberately or caught it through broader Nordic targeting.
  • Whether the National Police Board is examining these placements.
  • Whether a Finnish publisher can bear any liability for unlawful gambling advertising delivered programmatically. We have seen no decision on the point.
  • How many other Finnish publishers are affected. Three were documented.

See our report on the Board's October enforcement figures and our guide to what the marketing rules permit.