The Monopoly Ends
Mainland Finland is opening its online gambling market to competition in 2027. The monopoly of Veikkaus as the national and only legal operator is going to end (though they will have exclusivity on some products) on 1 July 2027, and the interest is immense: by 24 September 2026, the National Police Board had received 75 licence applications, more than the expected 40-60 (source).
The stated goals of the new law are channelisation, harm prevention and player protection: Offshore has been a major player in the market, with Veikkaus deputy CEO mentioning various estimates of €600-900m per year that is gambled outside the official system.
As part of the new law, strict marketing rules have been set up – and they will have a major effect on how the market will behave.
In this article we’ll try to explain these marketing laws to the best of our understanding, and why we think SEO may get more weight, while still having to meet the strict regulation rules.
This is of course not a legal article and we do not mean to give compliance advice – this is an analysis of how we see things from our own, SEO-focused, perspective.
What’s Allowed and What’s Banned in the Marketing Section of the New Finnish Gambling Law?
Section 51 of the new act permits the following channels:
- The operator’s own site and social media accounts (non-interactive)
- TV and radio
- Sporting and other public events
- Printed media (and the equivalent electronic publications)
- At gaming outlets themselves, for the available games
- In Search Engines – when the search term is words “directly related” to the licensee or the games they operate
What’s banned?
Affiliates, influencers, welcome bonuses – all are strong user acquisition channels and incentives. Loyalty and VIP rewards tied to gambling volume are also banned. Marketing must stay moderate, no over-promises, not playing down negative effects of gambling, and of course not targeting minors.
How do These Rules Change Customer Acquisition
The new rules will have effect on three different activities:
- Demand Creation: PR, advertising and sponsorships will build brand awareness; No affiliates and no influencers will mean the operators will lose certain established acquisition channels, and might invest more into discoverability by TV, sponsorships and print
- Demand Capture: Reaching people already searching for gambling online – whether it’s via brand search (because they saw it on TV for example) or because they’re looking for a new, legal, casino to play in.
- Customer Retention: might be a lot more difficult under the rules; Direct marketing will need explicit prior consent, and phone marketing is prohibited
What SEO Can’t Do Here?
The operator’s website is itself a marketing channel, so on-page SEO content is regulated. That means it must abide by rules, as well as titles, descriptions and offers.
It remains to be seen how Off-page SEO will fall into this – sponsored posts and content placements on third-party sites could plausibly be treated as prohibited third-party marketing.
These are all open questions that will be tested with time. And any SEO activity must take that into account.
The Search Field Now
Search volumes are significant. Just a few examples, according to keywordtool.io estimates for Finland, on October 2026:
| Keyword | English Translation | Search Volume | Top 3 Ranking 17.10 |
| kolikkopelit | slots | 49,500 | kolikkopelit.com (operator), ninjacasino.com (operator), boostcasino.com (operator) |
| nettikasino | online casino | 18,100 | netbet.com (operator), nettikasinot.com (affiliate), rizk.com (operator) |
| paras nettikasino | best online casino | 14,800 | rahapelisanomat.fi (news), pivekunkku.com (affiliate), kasinoseta.com (affiliate) |
| kasino | casino | 14,800 | ottokasino.com (operator), luckycasino.com (operator), betsson.com (operator) |
| nettikasinot | online casinos | 9,900 | nettikasinot.com (affiliate), suomifutis.com (affiliate), pivekunkku.com (affiliate) |
As we can see, some of the ranking sites are operators that are currently in the market, with no Finnish licence, and affiliates, which mostly rank on comparison-oriented search terms (e.g “best…”).
What will the Organic Search Field Look Like?
The competition in the organic search field will be mixed:
Brands that receive a licence after already being active in the market, and even rank, will have an advantage. New entrants will likely have to start from scratch.
Some of the brands that are applying for licences are big and significant with some search power behind them.
Affiliate sites and illegal brands will be present without a doubt, but the volume and size of them remains to be seen.
Veikkaus (which is now split into two separate entities) remains in the market and will be a major competitor – with years of brand search demand.
SEO work will be important: regulation-compliant content, with correct titles and descriptions, correct site hierarchy and technical setups and AI-Search optimization – sites need to be ready for AI searches around their names, their legality and broader topics.
Brand protection might be needed as well.
The Open Questions
As mentioned before, Search Engine Marketing is allowed for “directly related” terms – that remains to be interpreted. And so is the question whether these rules apply to paid search engine marketing, or to the organic one as well.
What happens with existing ranking operators that will gain licenses? Will they be allowed to keep their old sites, or move to new, .fi domains? Does their content that ranks have to be rebuilt or re-written to meet the new rules? These will have major SEO implications.
It remains to be seen what Finnish affiliate sites and non-licenced casinos will do. Will they give up their operations? Or will they still accept Finnish traffic under offshore operations?
Section 78 of the Act allows the regulator to order a service provider to remove online content and order a registrar to remove a domain name from the registry. These can also affect rankings and the SERPs.
Conclusions and Next Steps
Finland is a highly competitive, highly desirable gambling market, with many operators looking to make their business there legal.
While SEO is definitely not the only marketing channel, it is going to be an important one for any operator looking to capture brand, and potentially non-branded, demand.
Any brand who seeks to enter Finland needs to look into their SEO:
SEO is a practice that takes time; SEO that needs to meet strict regulation rules takes knowledge and experience.
While marketing activities are not allowed until 1 July 2027, preparing your site already now to meet the upcoming competition is important, and should not be overlooked. Research, site architecture, content strategy and preparations – will all be important way before the actual go-live of the final site.
If you’re applying for a Finnish licence, or already rank in Finland and are wondering what happens with your site on 1 July 2027, we’d be happy to talk it through.
At Leverage we’ve spent years doing SEO in regulated iGaming markets, and we can help you plan research, site architecture and compliant content now, so you’re ready on launch day rather than catching up after it.
