Nordic Gambling

Nordic countries would seem to be a natural place for international gambling organizations to gain a foothold especially since Finland is a European gambling mecca, but the move toward acceptance of these global gaming organizations into their gambling apparatus like has been the trend with other European countries has been stagnant in these countries. In fact, cracking its governmental monopolized structure is seemingly not even on the radar for these Nordic countries.

Their effective state-run monopoly is even very much favored by the Finish populace with approximately two-thirds of Finnish citizens report preferring this structure to any other and firmly reject its change. This study was commissioned by esteemed authorities and reported by national media outlets, but these outlets also report that the study was heavily weighted with older Finnish residents.

They also note that in the report, younger Finnish citizens were more likely to favor a transition to a system in which global organizations are important players in the Nordic gaming industry. However, they also insist that this is within the same governmental regulations, and it is important to also note that these organizations currently operate within this area, but in a non-designated and unregulated function.

Fins annual gambling capacity is currently in the tens of billions annually, and these operations were regulated by three separate agencies. Para-mutual betting was regulated by a single agency, lottery and other forms of betting were regulated by an agency, and casinos were likewise regulated. However, these three agencies have been amalgamated into a central gambling agency recently. According to certain studies, Finns lose more than two billion annually, and this metric is used to determine the appetite for a gambling in any particular country.

This figure would suggest a widespread untapped appetite for all types of gambling, but Finns prefer physical gambling machines and online casinos. However, even though many European markets have opened due to legislatures in those countries taking great interest in figures like these, Finland is not following this trend.

The European Commission directed that certain countries change their monopolistic structures to bring them in line with the laws that were passed to govern the European Union. Because of this, many of the countries impacted by the edict completely changed their gambling structures to become compliant with the EU directive, but Finland chose to change their system in a way that preserved their monopolistic characteristics while still following EU law.

Sweden followed a similar path as Finland, but their efforts were met with a directive by the commission to restructure further in order to satisfy EU law, and it was recently revealed that Sweden has decided to dismantle their monopolistic structures altogether. However, Finland’s proposed changes were written so well that the EU accepted their changes and allowed them to install their newly modified system. This means that Finland is not inclined by any measure to abandon their structure or the stance they have taken on accepting global gambling organizations into the fold for the foreseeable future.