Status of the Finnish gambling reform 

The Finnish Gambling Bill was submitted to Parliament in March 2025 and is currently under review. The new Finnish Gambling Act is expected to enter into force in January 2026, enabling gambling operators to apply for licences with licensed gambling activities expected to commence in early 2027.

Regulatory powers under review

A selected group of stakeholders has been invited to provide feedback on the regulatory powers proposed in the Finnish Gambling Bill. These powers aim to clarify the provisions of the proposed Act, particularly regarding technical details, and to ensure that the supervisory authority can access the necessary information to effectively oversee gambling operations.

The current version of the Bill outlines five regulatory powers under which the new supervisory authority may issue detailed technical regulations. A broad range of stakeholders—including legal and governmental authorities, gambling industry representatives, academic institutions, and social welfare organisations—have been asked to submit feedback by 15 July 2025.

The feedback request concerns the following powers:

• Licence application details
• Gaming system reliability and inspection body requirements.
• Gaming transaction monitoring and reporting requirements
• Scope of reporting and submission deadlines
• Supervisory fee collection procedures

If you are planning to respond to the consultation and would like our support, please do get in touch.

Following the feedback, the European Commission must be notified of the procedure for adopting technical and information society service regulations by early August 2025. Once the notification has been submitted, a three-month standstill period begins, during which the regulations cannot be formally adopted. If the Commission or a Member State issues a detailed opinion indicating that the measures may restrict the free movement of services, the adoption is postponed by an additional month.

While these mandatory waiting periods—and any resulting extensions—may affect how quickly certain regulations take effect, they are not expected to delay the overall timeline: January 2026 for licensing and January 2027 for the start of licensed operations.