Key Points
- Finland managed to issue four marketing bans and six orders to pay hefty fines in 2026, a bit of a record compared to earlier years.
- Every single one of those six payment orders landed on someone’s shoulders, while MagicPoro’s €1.2m corporate fine is still very much on the table.
- Actually, that 2024 fine against state-owned Veikkaus totalling a whopping €2.9m is still the biggest penalty on record.
Finland Cracks Down on Gambling Adverts, but Once Again the Fines are Going Straight to the Individuals
Six times this year Finland’s gambling regulator has ordered a fine to be paid, and guess what, it was always an individual who got the bill. In a statement released on October 14th the National Police Board dropped some pretty telling numbers, in total they’ve issued 4 prohibition decisions and 6 orders to pay up. This time around the numbers are actually a bit higher than in previous years, and it’s the details that are really interesting.
Enforcement Totals are on the Rise … But What Else is New?
The four prohibition decisions all targeted pretty dodgy online gambling marketing which was getting a bit too big for its boots. The state set conditional fines on those bans ranging from a low of €30,000 to a whopping €200,000 for those individuals caught up in it. Companies, on the other hand would have faced even steeper penalties, from €100,000 to a massive €1.2 million based on the actual damage they could cause and how much they could afford to pay.
And these fines work as a constant threat, like a shadow hanging over them, ordered to be paid only when you actually ignore the ban. In their explanation of the system, Juhani Wallinvirta, head of the group on the board said: “The purpose of the conditional fine is not to punish the activity but to stop it in its tracks and make sure that the marketing just dies down”. Under current law the only one who is actually allowed to market gambling games to mainland Finland is Veikkaus Oy.
All Six Payment Orders were Aimed at Individuals
So you look closer at the six payment orders and what do you see? A bit of a pattern, actually … every single one of them landed on a private individual, with amounts between €20,000 and €100,000 each. Not a single company got one of these orders, although there are still a few who have a conditional fine hanging over them.
AffPapa’s breakdown of the cases actually showed the group was a pretty mixed bag, not just people streaming games, included in the mix were a social media personality, a businessman and two streamers, with the biggest fine clocking in at €100,000. That one, issued in August, is still not final and could yet be changed. To be fair, an order to pay isn’t the same as actually getting the money, and the board hasn’t shared any collection figures.
Interestingly the board chose to keep one piece of context hidden from us, they said their figures are higher than before but they didn’t bother to throw in any numbers from previous years. Net Influencer pointed this out and you have to agree with them; it’s a pretty big omission. Without that baseline we can’t really tell just how sharp the rise is.
MagicPoro: It Took Years Until This Company Finally Got Its Prohibition Decision
The ceiling of €1.2 million is reserved for the Estonian-licensed MagicPoro, behind the Pelikaani, Pelikioski and Bigwin brands. According to the documents acquired by NEXT.io, the police investigation started back in autumn 2025, and the questions came to the company on 4 November. The company did not meet the December deadline, and then, in April, informed that the request arrived in March.
Its defence was built on neutrality, saying that its websites targeted no particular countries, and affiliates removed the Finnish content. However, in August 2026, two Pelikioski campaigns remained active via clipping platform Viralify. One of them had 27 clippers and more than 96,500 views.
The prohibition decision of 31 August 2026 is effective within 30 days after MagicPoro was notified about it. This date is not public, so the exact date of the ban is unknown.
Live Streaming Chat Discussions Stay Hot Topic
Gaming live streams have been monitored by the police for more than a year now. Already in September 2025, the Police University College stated that affiliate marketing was among the most frequent illegal activities. Senior Advisor Johanna Syväterä referred to gaming streams in which links to gambling sites were posted in chats. Under the Lotteries Act, even hashtags associated with gambling or site logos count as marketing. There is another important detail because gambling-related offences are punished with up to two years of imprisonment.
Last year’s warnings for influencers paved the way for the stricter measures of this year. So, in September 2025, iGaming Business announced that two influencers received conditional fines of €30,000 each for content posted on Twitch and Kick. The third influencer had to pay €30,000 because he ignored the warning earlier. Senior adviser Tomi Sallinen denied a popular defence: “It seems to be a common misconception that the marketing of gambling in Finland from outside Finland would be allowed.”
There is a reason why gambling brands are paid attention to in such discussions because there is no difficulty in finding any. Stake alone appeared in 6,600 streaming titles on Twitch and Kick in January 2026 according to Stream Hatchet data.
The Licence Race Heats Up, Offshore Brands Are on High Alert
Timing adds an extra layer of pressure to every decision the authorities make this year, and it’s already starting to bite. Licence applications opened on the 1st of March and, by the 22nd of September, 75 had been submitted according to SiGMA. That’s a staggering number, considering only 50 had been received by early June, which means interest really started to pick up over the summer. Each application comes with a hefty price tag of €29,000, and there’s no fixed deadline to get your submission in.
On the 16th of October, the Wildz Group, a Malta-based operator, became the first to go public with their claim of a Finnish licence. The board is still to confirm this, and there’s no official list of approved applicants yet. But if the MagicPoro warning is applied more widely it could have a lasting impact on other applicants, not just making their case weaker, but potentially even giving them a black mark against their name.
The Rules are Changing in a Big Way, July 2027 Can’t Come Soon Enough
On the 1st of July 2027, Finland’s new Gambling Act comes into force, bringing an end to Veikkaus’s monopoly over online casino and betting. Licensing and supervision will then be handled by the Finnish Supervisory Agency instead of the police board, and licensed operators will finally be allowed to do some of their own marketing on their own websites and social media accounts, albeit with strict conditions in place. These conditions mean no interacting with consumers, and influencer marketing and phone direct marketing are still completely off the table.
Despite these changes, there are still many people who think young people need even more protection from the dangers of gambling. In fact, just last month on the 7th of October, THL and KKV made a proposal to take the gambling age up to 20 and to ban social media gambling marketing altogether. It’s a move that’s certainly been backed by THL Director General Mika Salminen who said: “Protecting young people really needs to become a priority for our gambling policy.”
Expert Analysis: Veikkaus’s Record Fine is a Real Wake-Up Call
The most telling number in all of Finland’s crackdown doesn’t actually come from this year, or last year, for that matter. In November 2024, the board slapped Veikkaus with a €2.9 million conditional fine for TV advertising that had clearly reached minors. That figure actually tops the BML Group’s then record €2.4 million conditional fine from 2023, even after Betsson’s subsidiary managed to fight it in court. It’s also more than double the biggest corporate penalty this year, which was actually a €1.4 million fine given to MagicPoro.
We think this is a pretty uncomfortable truth for anyone who still thinks of this crackdown solely as a way to target offshore brands. The sharpest marketing penalty Finland has handed out recently actually landed squarely on the operator who’s currently shielded from competition by law. Anyone who’s critical of the monopoly will take this as proof that the system can’t even police its own champion.
We’re also wondering how this story is being spun at the moment. The fact that all six payment orders are named individuals, but every single corporate fine we’ve seen this year is still a threat, does raise a few eyebrows. It doesn’t necessarily prove anyone was singled out, but it does show where the hardest consequences have fallen first. That’s not exactly the kind of transparency you’d expect from a regulator asking for public trust. Until they’re willing to publish their earlier totals and collection figures, “clearly higher” is just a claim we’re going to have to take on faith.
That being said, the MagicPoro documents do show some careful and patient police work before any ban was issued. However, the real test will come when a company, not an individual, gets ordered to pay up.
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