Finland Fines MagicPoro €1.2m Over Gambling Marketing

Key Points

• Finland’s National Police Board has basically told MagicPoro to cease and desist when it comes to marketing to Finnish players.
• And if they don’t comply, they’re set to be hit with a hefty €1.2m conditional fine, on top of a payment block that will freeze the cash coming in from Finnish players.
• This order has some serious teeth to it thanks to a new rule in Finland’s Gambling Act, which could make the operator’s life much harder if they can’t clean up their act.

Finland Hits MagicPoro With €1.2m Conditional Fine and Marketing Ban

The “Markka” virtual currency of the casino could turn out to be an expensive undertaking for an offshore gambling organisation, worth way more than €1.2 million. The National Police Board of Finland (NPB) has issued an injunction for MagicPoro to cease advertising gambling services targeted at Finns. There is a €1.2 million conditional fine looming behind the injunction, which will become effective as soon as the block on payments kicks in. The information was obtained by NEXT.io under Finland’s Act on the Openness of Government Activities.

Why Finland Has Had To Act Against MagicPoro?

Under Finland’s Lotteries Act, only Veikkaus is allowed to promote gambling in Finland till the new licensed market opens. The National Police Board had it about right when they decided MagicPoro broke that rule by trying to reach local consumers through several different brands. This is the first time the NPB has had to issue a ban since the new Gambling Act was passed back in December 2025. However, the case is still stuck in the old rules, since the new Act only really starts to apply from July 2027.

How The Investigation Unfolded?

Things kicked off in Autumn 2025 and focused on three of MagicPoro’s brands: Pelikaani, Pelikioski and Bigwin. On 4 November, the police got in touch with MagicPoro to ask them to explain what was going on. By that stage, the police had already got a good idea that the law had been broken. MagicPoro were given a deadline of December to respond, but as it turned out were just too slow. The police say they got no reply from the company, not even to remind them they had to reply by a certain time.

It wasn’t until April that MagicPoro finally got in touch, saying the letters had arrived a whole month later than they should have done. Their defence rested on one idea: that their websites and content were not aimed at any particular country, it was all just international stuff. MagicPoro also claimed that their affiliates had been told to edit the content to make it completely neutral.

“But for more of our international affiliate sites, the affiliate managers had been told to make all the content completely neutral.”

Why The ‘Country Neutral’ Defence Fell Flat?

By August, the police had found plenty of marketing still active, which rather undermined that defence. They found that two of Pelikioski’s campaigns were still going strong on Viralify, a platform where clippers basically just share short promotional videos. One of the campaigns alone had 27 clippers and managed to get 96,500 views, which is no small number. The police also made the connection between MagicPoro and another site called Pottila at around the same time.

But there’s more to the story than has been reported in most other places. Back in April, the NEXT.io report on Finnish inquiries found that Pelikaani and Pelikioski were only showing Finnish bank logos when players were checking out. It also came out that MagicPoro’s affiliate programme called Pelikioski was its second biggest Finnish brand, where players could earn themselves an in-game currency called “Markka”. The police also spotted paid adverts from MagicPoro on Instagram and Facebook that were targeted directly at people in Finland.

It’s worth noting that MagicPoro did ask their partners to take down the content after the police got in touch, but an awful lot of it was still out there by August.

What The Prohibition Order Means?

The order was issued on 31 August 2026 and took effect a month after MagicPoro was told about it. From that point on, MagicPoro will have to remove all its current marketing and stop making any new material for Finnish audiences. The ban will last for 12 months, and if MagicPoro does the same thing again, the NPB can extend it for another year. The €1.2m fine is also on the table, but MagicPoro won’t have to pay it unless they get found out breaking the rules during the ban.

The payment blocking rules for gambling mean that players shouldn’t be able to send money to MagicPoro once the ban comes in. The payment providers will have to enforce this, so from then on, Finnish players should find that their deposits to MagicPoro get refused. We asked MagicPoro for a comment but didn’t hear back from them, and it’s not clear if they’ve even tried to appeal.

How The Fine Compares To Earlier Cases?

Finland’s history with this tool, they actually used it before and some earlier cases are pretty useful for putting MagicPoro’s penalty into perspective. In 2023, for instance, the NPB fined the Betsson subsidiary BML Group a cool €2.4m on a pretty similar basis, but with a big difference, that was a couple of years ago now, when things were a lot less sensitive.

One thing that’s also worth noting is that enforcement doesn’t just stop at the companies behind these offshore casinos, it can also reach out and nail individuals who go out of their way to promote them. Just a few months ago, in fact, a district court fined a well-known streamer by the name of Pottukoira €2,480 for basically plugging unlicensed casino offers.

Will The Order Scupper A Future Licence?

The police told MagicPoro that this order could have an impact on a future licence application, and that’s not just a wild guess either. The law actually sets it all out in a pretty clear way. Finland’s explanation to the European Commission explains in section 10 of the Gambling Act that an applicant fails the reliability test if they get a prohibition of this sort within two years before the assessment. The prohibition also has to have been handed out after 1 September 2024.

Now I know some reports have been saying the cut-off date is 21 September 2024, but that’s not right. MagicPoro’s order was actually issued on 31 August 2026, which is well within the window either way. We don’t actually know yet whether MagicPoro has even applied for a licence, and of course an appeal could still change everything.

Why The Timing Matters For 2027?

The thing is, demand for Finnish gambling licences is really strong at the moment, which means people who get shut out are going to miss out on a lot of money. The NPB had already received 50 licence applications by 8 June 2026, and things only look set to get busier from here. As Senior Adviser Juha Katainen pointed out, the reason for the delay in processing these applications is that the majority of applicants are actually from abroad.

When the new Act finally launches on 1 July 2027, all licensed operators will be allowed to start trading. But just a few months later, the same Act will ban affiliate and influencer marketing altogether, even for companies that have got a licence. And here’s the thing, the order against MagicPoro can’t take effect before late September 2026, so a full 12-month ban would actually last well past the launch date.

Health Authorities Want To Ban Social Media Marketing

This case is a bit of a coincidence, because Finland’s health and consumer watchdogs are at the moment pushing for even tougher rules. Just a few weeks ago, in fact, THL and KKV issued a joint warning saying the new system is not going to do enough to protect players. And one of the things they’re proposing to ban is social media marketing altogether, although that’s still just a recommendation, not a law. KKV Director General Kirsi Leivo pointed out that the reform seems to be favouring the operators who want to come to Finland, rather than actually doing anything to stop people getting into trouble.

Of course, that kind of exposure is exactly what the health authorities are worried about, and a campaign like the one against MagicPoro that got nearly 100,000 views is the kind of thing they fear. But on the other hand, the industry is warning that these sorts of limits could actually have the opposite effect and drive players to the black market, and make a lot of smaller operators’ lives really difficult, warned of black market risks.

Expert Analysis: The Fine Is Not The Real Penalty

The €1.2 million figure is in our opinion the most irrelevant figure in the entire decision. A conditional penalty takes effect in case of a breach, which MagicPoro can easily prevent by just obeying. The licence regulation is where the real damage is inflicted since it might block access to the market which MagicPoro tried to reach out to.

Another point to criticise is the speed of the enforcement process regardless of its fairness. It took ten months from the first letter till the final decision was made and people were still collecting opinions during this period. The idea of “country neutrality” is also failing miserably in light of the in-game currency named after the Finnish markka. From our point of view, a brand that pays out its players in the currency known only to Finns is hardly neutral.

However, there is one point raised by the company which needs to be taken into account by the regulators. Often affiliates and clippers work independently of the operator who does not have any power to track every repost done by third parties. Now Finland will need to decide whether the operators are responsible for the promotion of their brands or just what they paid for.