Key Points
- Wildz Group has just announced it has got a licence for five years from 2027, but the regulator folks at the National Police Board don’t seem to back them up on it.
- Last year Wildz had a bit of a scare over possible marketing rules in Finland, and that is coming back to haunt them right now.
- Finland got a stack of 75 online gambling licence applications last September, but none of them has been confirmed as a yes just yet.
A Licence Announced By The Winner, Not The Guy Running The Show
It’s only 8 months until Finland’s online gambling market opens up, but it’s got a supposed winner already. On October 15, Malta-based Wildz Group said they got a letter from the National Police Board saying they were good to go.
According to Wildz, that letter gives them permission to serve Finnish customers for 5 years from the 1st of July 2027. That’s also the day when Veikkaus stops being the only game in town when it comes to online casino and betting.
The company’s Chief Executive Sam Brown was pretty upbeat about it all, calling it “pretty amazing news” and a “welcome reward for all the hard work the team has put in”. But when he ended with “We’re looking forward to July 2027”, it felt a bit flat.
Wildz and a bunch of its siblings, Caxino, Wheelz, Spinz, Chipz, Tuplaus and Blingi, are all heading to Finland, along with a sportsbook. And they’re all from Finland to boot, a bit of a homecoming.
The Regulator’s Not Saying A Word
Now there’s a problem. The Police Board hasn’t said squat about any of the licence winners, even though the press release from Wildz says it all should be sorted by now.
Wildz hasn’t even given us a licence number, let alone say what types of games they can do, which kind of matters when you’re running both a casino and a sportsbook.
The company’s PR people tried to spin it a bit, “we’ll be working with the Finns to get more players sorted with legitimate operators”, but one of their board members was a bit more honest: “the licence kicks in on 1st July 2027”. It feels like every one of these confirmations is coming from within the company, no one is backing it up from the outside.
Actually, What Does The Gambling Act Say?
So the ticket to all this sounds like it’s 5 years long, but the law actually says that’s the maximum, not the minimum. And it also lays out exactly what types of games they can do, or indeed must do, which are fixed-odds wagers, variable-odds wagers, virtual betting, online casino, bingo or slots. And they have to say what they can actually do.
Money will also be on the agenda come day one, they’ll need to start paying a 22% tax on their profits.
Getting to this Point
The journey, however, has been a long and politically settled one. The new Gambling Act was passed by the parliament on 16 December 2025 with 158 votes to nine, and signed by the president on 16 January 2026.
The licensing application process started on 1 March 2026 at a non-refundable application fee of €29,000 per application. As of September, 75 applications had been submitted by the board, up from 50 in June.
However, the number above requires some careful consideration.
Rules Still in Pencil
Any holder of the gambling license will be required to follow the player protection measures that are still in draft form. According to draft decrees from the Ministry of the Interior, there would be a slot stake restriction of €20, dropping to €10 for users under the age of 25.
These same draft decrees include an autoplay restriction and player reminders every 15 minutes. The consultation period closed on 5 August 2026, and no final version has been published yet.
Antti Koivula from Hippos ATG described these as “restrictive, but not quite Germany. Maybe not even the Netherlands, at least not yet”.
A few days before the license announcement, game studio Just Slots reached an agreement to provide games to eight Wildz brands, including Wildz Casino, Blingi and Spinz.
The Case of 2025 That Refuses to Go Away
Twelve months ago, the situation looked completely different. In 2025, the Police Board requested the company to stop marketing its services for Finnish players.
According to the board, their investigators discovered Instagram posts and sports websites in Finland promoting Wildz and a bet refund offer related to the match between Finland and Poland in a World Cup qualifier.
They stated that they were considering prohibition with a conditional fine. No prohibition has been announced since then.
The company disagreed with the claims but promised to delete Finland-oriented promotional content, and Brown explained that the company followed all requests.
Other companies have had to deal with that threat directly. According to Gaming Intelligence, in 2026, the board made four prohibition decisions and six conditional fines, with company fines totalling €1.2 million.
One of the decisions is currently facing legal challenges. Helsinki Administrative Court suspended MagicPoro’s ban and conditional fine together with the planned payment-blocking listing.
“What Being First Really Gains”
It is impossible for being first to give Wildz any sort of trading edge because nobody is going to be able to lay a wager on Finnish sports events before 1 July 2027.
Instead, what it really buys them is preparation time within the strict regulatory framework of the nation. The sportsbook partner, Altenar, has made it clear that the goal is to become the third biggest operator there.
Expert Analysis: Finland Allowed a Company to Speak for Itself First
In our opinion, the real story here isn’t about Wildz at all. What worries us is the fact that the Finnish licensing process now communicates via press releases, whereas the regulator itself is silent.
Think about how peculiar it is. Market channelisation requires knowing which brands are licensed, but its first license is made public only in a press release by the company.
The 2025 situation, in our opinion, requires an explanation as well. Board discussed prohibition, no one followed it, and the same body now claims it stands in line first.
Please keep in mind that there’s no information on violation of any licensing requirements or preferential treatment on the part of Wildz. Our argument is more specific: without publishing the rationale behind it, other companies can only guess how Section 10 is interpreted.
Surely, some people will say that it was just excellent timing on the part of Wildz, and they will be right. However, in our opinion, Finland should publish its list of licensees and the rationale behind it now, rather than wait until 2027.
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