Consumer authority in Finland urges Veikkaus supervision

The Finnish authority said that in order to prevent the negative impacts of gambling, more effective supervision is needed.

Finland.- A new report from the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority (FCCA) urges more supervision around Veikkaus. The consumer authority said that the prevention of the negative impacts of gambling will require more effective supervision.

The FCCA indicated that only after more supervision it will be known whether the monopoly system in Finland should be dismantled. The authority said that it has studied alternative methods for the organising, regulation and supervision of gambling.

The report is the first part of the agency’s more broad-scoped gambling project on which more reports will be published over the autumn. The final report will be published in early 2020.

The FCCA report says that Finland’s gambling system doesn’t meet the requirement for effective supervision. “There are numerous different bodies responsible for regulation, and their tasks are in part overlapping. For this reason, their mutual responsibilities are somewhat ambiguous,” said the FCCA.

“The prevalence of gambling problems is due more to how gambling is regulated than how it is organised. Current gambling regulation must first be centred on one body and made more effective. Only after this should we consider whether there is a need to change the system,” said Head of Research Anu Raijas.

“It is also problematic with regard to the impartiality of supervision that the beneficiaries of gambling proceeds participate in the regulation of gambling and are responsible for making decisions on gambling policies. It may be more of an incentive for beneficiaries to manage their financing from gambling proceeds than to manage gambling problems and their prevention,” added the FCCA.

The FCCA proposal

The FCCA report proposes that in addition to the centring of regulation the negative impacts of gambling could be reduced by telling consumers in a clear and concise manner that there is a risk of excessive or uncontrolled gambling related to certain games. In many countries, the availability of those forms of gambling that have been determined harmful has been limited.

More research is also needed for the prevention of gambling problems in areas such as people’s gambling behaviours and the consumption of gambling to gain data on – for instance – how gambling is divided between different games and how extensive problematic gambling is.