In December 2025, Finnish Parliament approved a law that cancels governmental monopoly on online gambling and opens the market to private operators. Previously all the online betting and casino sites were regulated by the government operator Veikkaus, but new legislation will implement the licensing system that will allow both international and local companies to work legally in the finnish market upon regulators’ approval.

The law is expected to be signed by the President of Finland and has to come into force from January 2026, and after that, from March 1, 2026 the regulators will start to accept applications for licences from operators.

Full competition in the licensed sector, including online casinos and betting, is expected to be launched from July 1st, 2027, which postpones the initial governmental plans. Still, Veikkaus will hold a monopoly only in some lotteries and land-based games but will have to compete in new segments.

During the parliamentary discussion, the opposition’s stricter amendments, which proposed to tighten advertising restrictions and raise the age threshold for gambling from 18 to 20 years, were rejected. Thus, the Finnish market is preparing to switch to a model with licences and enhanced regulation, but without a number of additional restrictions that opponents of the reform wanted to introduce.

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