Betsson hit with €2.4m fine in Finland

Finland’s National Police Board ruled that the company had breached the Finnish Lotteries Act.

Finland.- The Betsson subsidiary BML Group has been hit with a €2.4m fine for targeting customers in Finland. It’s been banned from marketing to Finnish players after the National Police Board (NPB) found it to be in breach of the Finnish Lotteries Act, which upholds Veikkaus’s gambling monopoly in the country.

The NPB found that Betsson had illegally targeted players in mainland Finland through marketing on various channels and forms of media over an extended period. It said BML had been given opportunities to submit a statement to give its point of view and to correct its activity to comply with Finnish law.

In a hearing, BML did say that it had made changes to its marketing activity, and the NPB said it considered this a mitigating factor. However, it ruled that the operator had continued to market to Finnish players.

It said: “The National Police Board estimated that BML has significant financial interest in continuing the activities and found that the illegal activities have continued for a long time regardless of the board’s previous control measures

“The National Police Board reviewed the measures undertaken by the company to reduce marketing, and they were considered a mitigating factor when the amount of the conditional fine was determined.”

Betsson’s BML website is now prohibited from directly or indirectly promoting gambling services in mainland Finland. The ban covers all communications that may target Finnish consumers, including podcasts and articles, and all marketing that features Finnish celebrities. It applies to affiliate sites as well as sites owned and operated by the group itself. 

BML must also remove all previous promotional material. It will also be added to the NPB’s list of sites that will be subject to payment blocks when it gains new payment-blocking powers on June 3. Failure to comply with the prohibition could lead to the imposition of conditional fines.

Gambling in Finland

The Finnish Lotteries Act states that only Veikkaus, the state-controlled gambling monopoly, can market gambling services to Finnish consumers. However, the government is currently considering opening Finland’s gambling market to competition. Veikkaus has welcomed the move, urging the government to introduce a regulated market sooner rather than later.

See also: Finland: police probe Malta igaming operator over “aggressive” marketing