Finland's licensed market opens on 1 July 2027. The hiring for it started eighteen months earlier, and it is visible in public appointment announcements long before any company confirms a licence application.
This guide is written for two readers: the operator trying to read a competitor's intentions, and the person deciding whether there is a career here. The same evidence serves both.
What the appointments tell you
An operator entering a new market hires in a recognisable order. Country leadership first, because someone has to own the plan. Compliance and responsible gambling next, because the licence application requires named people and documented processes. Customer service and payments last, close to launch, because those are cost centres that do nothing until there are players.
Where a company sits in that sequence tells you how far along it is, and it is public.
Immense Group appointed Joonas Karhu as Managing Director, Finland in February 2026, based in Helsinki. The group's own announcement said he would lead its preparation work ahead of Finland's licensing framework. Karhu co-founded the affiliate Bojoko and was Immense Group's Finland country manager a decade ago, when the group was Videoslots. Its brands include Mr Vegas, DBET, Videoslots, Kungaslottet and Mega Riches.
ComeOn Group appointed Sara Nunes as General Manager for Finland in September 2026. Trade coverage described it as the group's first substantive signal of Finnish intent. Nunes has been country manager for Rootz, Kindred and Betsson, and was previously Managing Director and Chief Commercial Officer for Finland at the NYSE-listed High Roller Technologies, a role created in July 2025.
That last detail is worth sitting with. A listed operator created a Finland managing director role in mid-2025, before applications opened, and the person who held it has since moved to a competitor. Appointments are signals in both directions.
Kambi has signed a sportsbook deal with SuomiVeto, a newly created Finnish sportsbook. A supplier contract with a company that did not exist before the reform is a different kind of signal from an established operator adding a country manager.
The roles the Act creates
The new framework generates demand that did not exist under the monopoly.
- Responsible gambling and player protection. Mandatory identification, self-set deposit limits, a company-level transfer limit and a single national self-exclusion covering every licensed operator. These are not marketing functions. They require people who can design controls and evidence them to a regulator.
- Finnish compliance and AML. Licence applications are assessed on reliability and suitability, with corporate register extracts, certificates and reports. Someone has to own that file, and then own it again at renewal.
- Payments and identity. Identification runs through the Finnish Trust Network, which means bank identification rather than document upload. Integrating it is specialist work.
- Reporting and data. Licensed operators must report to the regulator through a cryptographic signing system set out in binding regulations. This is platform engineering, and most operators are buying it from suppliers who have not built it yet.
- Finnish-language customer service. The largest category by headcount, and the one that arrives last.
The roles the Act removes
This is the part career advice usually leaves out.
The Act prohibits affiliate marketing outright, and prohibits influencer marketing. A licensed operator may market only through its own website and its own social media accounts, and marketing must be moderate in content, visibility and frequency. Outdoor advertising for higher-risk products is prohibited.
The practical effect is that a set of jobs which have employed Finnish speakers for fifteen years do not exist inside the licensed market. Affiliate manager for Finland, influencer partnerships, aggressive bonus acquisition: none of these has a home at a Finnish licensee after July 2027. Some of that work will continue to exist offshore, serving players the licensed market does not capture. That is a career decision with a direction of travel attached to it.
Where the jobs actually are
Mostly not in Finland.
The Act requires a registered office in Finland or another EEA state. It does not require a Finnish office, Finnish staff or Finnish infrastructure. Most licensees will be run from where they are already run: Malta, Stockholm, Tallinn, and increasingly remote.
What that means in practice:
- Malta holds the largest concentration of Finnish-language roles, particularly customer service, VIP management and CRM. Recent advertised ranges for a Finnish-speaking VIP account manager in Sliema have been around €35,000 to €40,000.
- Helsinki gets country leadership, partnerships and public affairs. These are senior, few, and usually filled by people already known in the market. Both appointments above are Helsinki-based or Finland-facing.
- Tallinn and Stockholm take operations and technology, on cost and proximity.
- Remote is now normal for country management: recently advertised Nordic country manager roles have been fully remote, with packages around €100,000.
For a Finnish speaker, the language is the asset. It is scarce, it is required by regulation for customer-facing functions, and it does not travel: an operator cannot substitute a Swedish speaker into a Finnish support desk.
How to read a job advertisement as a market signal
- A country manager or general manager posting means strategy is being written. Twelve to eighteen months from launch.
- A compliance or responsible gambling posting for Finland means an application is being prepared or has been filed.
- A Finnish-speaking customer service posting in volume means launch is close, or the operator already serves Finnish players from offshore.
- "Knowledge of the Finnish market is a plus" inside an unrelated role means the market is on the roadmap but nobody owns it yet.
- A posting that names no company is a recruiter's listing. It tells you demand exists; it tells you nothing about who.
What we do not know
- How many of the roughly 50 applicants intend to staff in Finland at all.
- Whether the supervisory authority will expect a local presence in practice, beyond what the Act requires on paper.
- How many offshore-facing Finnish-language roles will close when the licensed market opens, and over what period.
- Salary levels for Finland-specific compliance roles. Nothing has been published.
We track appointment announcements as market signals and will update this guide as the pattern develops.
