Finland opens its online gambling market to licensed private operators on 1 July 2027, and search will be one of the few digital channels those operators can use freely. The new Gambling Act bans affiliate marketing and influencer promotion, and it limits most online marketing to the operator’s own channels. For an operator entering Finland, a well-built Finnish website that ranks in Google is therefore worth more than in almost any other European market.
This guide covers the licensing timeline, the marketing rules that shape SEO, what operators can and can’t do with links, and how to prepare a Finnish site before launch.
Finland’s gambling reform: key dates
From monopoly to licensed market
- Parliament approves the new Gambling Act.
- The President confirms the Act (10/2026).
- Operators can apply for gambling licences at the National Police Board. Application fee: EUR 29,000.
- The National Police Board has received around 50 licence applications.
- The licensed market opens. The Finnish Supervisory Agency (Lupa- ja valvontavirasto) takes over licensing and supervision. Software supplier applications open.
- Licensed operators may only use software from licensed gambling software suppliers.
Veikkaus keeps exclusive rights to lotteries, scratch cards and land-based slot machines and casinos. Checked September 2026.
What is changing in Finland’s gambling market?
Finland is replacing its online gambling monopoly with a licensing system, and private operators can offer betting and online casino games from July 2027.
The timeline
The Gambling Act (10/2026) was confirmed by the President on 16 January 2026, and operators have been able to apply for a licence since the beginning of March 2026. The licensed market opens on 1 July 2027. Until then, Veikkaus, the state-owned operator, keeps its monopoly over the gambling products covered by the current system.
Interest has been strong. By June 2026, the National Police Board had received 50 licence applications.
What private operators can offer
A Finnish licence covers the main online gambling products. Operators can apply for licences covering online betting, online casino, online slot machines and online bingo. Veikkaus keeps exclusive rights to land-based gaming machines, lotteries and scratch cards.
Who supervises the market
Supervision moves to a new authority when the market opens. The National Police Board handles licence applications until 30 June 2027, and from 1 July 2027 the Finnish Supervisory Agency (Lupa- ja valvontavirasto) takes over licensing and supervision. Applications must be submitted in Finnish or Swedish.
Costs and tax
A Finnish licence comes with fixed fees and a revenue tax. The application fee is EUR 29,000 per application, charged whether the decision is positive or negative, and licence holders pay an annual supervision fee of EUR 4,000 to EUR 434,000 based on gaming revenue. Licensed operators pay a flat tax of 22% of gross gaming revenue (GGR). GGR is the amount players stake minus the winnings paid out.
Licences last up to five years at a time. From 1 July 2028, licensed operators may only use software from licensed gambling software suppliers.
Why is SEO so important for gambling operators in Finland?
SEO matters more in Finland than in most markets because the Gambling Act closes several of the digital channels operators rely on elsewhere.
The permitted marketing channels
The Act lists where licence holders may market. Marketing is permitted on the operator’s own website and social media accounts, provided it isn’t interactive with the consumer, on television and radio, at sports and other public events, in print media and their electronic equivalents, and in outdoor advertising away from schools and similar locations. Marketing must also be moderate in quantity, quality, visibility and frequency.
Gambling marketing channels under the new Act
For licence holders from 1 July 2027
Permitted (Section 51)
- The operator’s own website and apps
- The operator’s own social media, if not interactive with consumers
- Television and radio
- Print media and their electronic equivalents, such as newspaper websites
- Sports and other public events, during the event
- Outdoor advertising, away from schools and similar locations
- Search ads on keywords related to the operator’s own brand or games (per the Administration Committee report)
Not permitted
- Affiliate marketing (left out of the permitted channels)
- Influencer marketing
- Marketing aimed at minors or sponsorships targeting under-18s
- Most bonuses and player incentives, such as deposit bonuses and free play
- Marketing by unlicensed operators
All marketing must also be moderate in quantity, visibility and frequency. Summary for information only; not legal advice.
The channels that are closed
Two of the biggest online acquisition channels are shut. Affiliate marketing is implicitly prohibited, because it was left out of the permitted channels in Section 51. Operators also may not work with influencers who actively promote gambling in their own social media channels.
Bonuses are largely off the table too. The Act prohibits free-to-play offers, deposit bonuses, discounted play, bundled offers and other player incentives as a general rule. Operators therefore can’t compete on welcome offers the way they do in many other markets.
Search ads are allowed, within limits
Paid search is one digital channel that remains open. According to an analysis of the Administration Committee report, operators can buy search engine ads as long as the keywords relate directly to their own brand or games.
What that means for SEO
When affiliates, influencers and bonuses are gone, players who want to find a licensed operator will mostly search for one. Google handles 85.45% of searches in Finland (August 2026), so ranking in google.fi for brand, game and category searches becomes a central part of acquisition. The operator’s own website is also one of the few places where it can publish detailed marketing content.
Can gambling operators build links to their Finnish sites?
Operators can still earn links, but paid content promoting gambling on third-party Finnish sites is likely to conflict with the new marketing rules.
What the Act says and doesn’t say
The Gambling Act doesn’t mention SEO or link building directly. What it does say is that marketing must be carried out or produced by the licence holder, and if another party disseminates it, there must be a contract between them. That marketing must then fit one of the permitted channels.
A sponsored article on a Finnish blog that promotes a casino and links to it is a form of marketing. A general blog is neither the operator’s own channel nor print media. That makes paid gambling-promotion articles on third-party sites high-risk for a licensed operator. Paid advertising in newspaper websites and other editorial online media is different, since those count as electronic equivalents of print media.
Google’s rules apply on top of this. Any paid link must still be qualified with rel=”sponsored” or rel=”nofollow” under Google’s spam policies, and under Finnish consumer protection law, paid content must be clearly recognizable as advertising. For more detail, see our guide to paid links, Google’s rules and Finnish advertising labeling.
Link sources that remain open
Operators can still build authority through links that aren’t gambling marketing:
- Earned news coverage: Finnish media will report on licence decisions, market entries and company news. Coverage a journalist writes independently isn’t the operator’s marketing.
- Industry and B2B media: Trade publications and business news sites covering the Finnish reform link to operators they write about.
- Sponsorships: A sponsored team or individual may display the sponsoring operator’s logo in their channels as long as gambling products aren’t featured. Sponsorship pages often link to their sponsors.
- Corporate content: Careers pages, company information, research on responsible gambling and market data can earn links from sites that would never link to a casino lobby.
For how to earn Finnish press coverage, see digital PR in Finland. The planned guide to casino link building in Finland covers compliant link building for operators in more detail.
Because the rules are new and there’s no case law yet, every link and content activity should be checked by a Finnish lawyer before launch.
How should operators prepare a Finnish site for search?
Operators should build their Finnish site well before 1 July 2027, because new pages take months to earn rankings.
SEO readiness checklist for 1 July 2027
What operators should have in place before launch
Now to early 2027
Early to mid 2027
From launch
Write native Finnish content
Finnish players expect content written in natural Finnish, not translation. Finnish has fifteen noun cases, so one keyword appears in many forms. For example, kasino (casino) also appears as kasinolla (at a casino) and kasinot (casinos), and vedonlyönti (betting) as vedonlyöntiin (to betting). Keyword research needs to capture these forms. See Finnish keyword research and Finnish content localisation.
Plan for Swedish-speaking Finns
About 5% of Finland’s population speaks Swedish as a mother tongue. A Swedish-language version, marked with hreflang sv-FI, lets you reach this group without competing against your own Swedish-market pages. Hreflang is a code attribute that tells Google which language and country a page is meant for. See hreflang for Finland.
Show trust signals
Gambling sites fall under Google’s strictest quality standards. On the Finnish site, make the licence information, company details, age limit and responsible gambling tools easy to find. The age limit is 18, and players will be able to self-exclude through a central system covering all licence holders. Those features also answer searches that players make before signing up.
Align SEO with search ads
Brand search ads and organic rankings support each other. Since search ads are limited to keywords related to the operator’s own brand and games, organic SEO has to cover the broader category searches, such as game types, betting markets and how-to questions.
Don’t build content around bonuses
Bonus pages are standard in other markets, but the general ban on player incentives makes them largely irrelevant in Finland. Focus content on games, rules, payment methods, safety and responsible gambling instead.
How does Finland compare with other Nordic gambling markets?
Finland is the last of the Nordic countries with a large online market to open, and it’s following Denmark and Sweden with a licensing model.
| Country | Online market model | Opened to licensed operators | Online gambling tax | Regulator |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Finland | Licensing (from 2027) | 1 July 2027 | 22% of GGR | Lupa- ja valvontavirasto (from 1 July 2027) |
| Sweden | Licensing | 1 January 2019 | 22% of GGR (since 1 July 2024) | Spelinspektionen |
| Denmark | Licensing | 2012 | 28% of GGR (since 2021) | Spillemyndigheden |
| Norway | State monopoly | Not opened | Not applicable | Lotteritilsynet |
The Danish and Swedish experience suggests licensed markets can work well. Denmark had the highest channelization rate in the Nordics at 90% in April 2024. Channelization is the share of gambling that takes place with licensed operators. Sweden’s rate is around 85–86%. Norway has taken a different route, and its regulator can order internet providers to block unlicensed gambling sites through DNS blocking.
For link building differences across the region, see Nordic link building.
What are the pros and cons of entering Finland’s licensed market?
From an SEO perspective, Finland offers a large, search-driven market but strict limits on how operators can promote themselves.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| High gambling participation and an estimated market GGR of EUR 1.9 billion in 2026 | No affiliate or influencer marketing |
| Organic search becomes a key acquisition channel for all licensed operators | Most bonuses and player incentives are prohibited |
| Early movers can build rankings before 1 July 2027 | Paid link building on third-party sites is legally risky |
| Legal certainty and access to Finnish payment and marketing channels | 22% GGR tax plus application and supervision fees |
| Finnish players tend to trust regulated operators | Veikkaus has an established customer base |
On the last point, Veikkaus had 2.7 million registered customers in its H1 2026 results.
What SEO mistakes do operators make when entering Finland?
The biggest mistake is copying an acquisition model from another market that Finnish law doesn’t allow.
- Planning an affiliate-led launch. Affiliate marketing isn’t a permitted channel in Finland, so it can’t carry a market entry.
- Buying sponsored casino articles on Finnish blogs. Paid gambling promotion on third-party sites is likely to fall outside the permitted channels.
- Starting SEO at launch. New pages need months to rank. Operators who begin in July 2027 will be far behind.
- Translating from Swedish or English. Finnish is unrelated to Swedish, and translated gambling content reads badly and ranks poorly.
- Building content around bonuses. Most incentives are banned, so bonus-led pages have little to offer Finnish players.
- Ignoring responsible gambling content. Licence information and player protection tools are both legal requirements and strong trust signals for Google.
How SEO Butler supports operators in Finland
SEO Butler Limited, which runs backlinksfinland.com, has worked in the Finnish market for six years. For gambling operators preparing for July 2027, we focus on technical SEO, native Finnish content written in-house and reviewed by a Finnish speaker, and digital PR that earns coverage without promoting gambling on third-party sites. Read more about the site’s background on our homepage guide to link building in Finland, or contact SEO Butler about Finnish SEO.
Disclaimer: This page is general information for businesses about SEO and the Finnish gambling market. It isn’t legal advice, and the rules may change as the supervisory authority issues guidance. Operators should get advice from a Finnish lawyer before planning any marketing or link building. Gambling is only for people aged 18 or over. If gambling is causing problems for you or someone close to you, contact Peluuri, Finland’s free and confidential gambling helpline, on 0800 100 101 (weekdays 12:00–18:00). Paid links must follow Google’s spam policies, and paid content must be labeled as advertising in line with the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority’s guidance. backlinksfinland.com is owned by SEO-Butler Limited.
Reference sources
- Borenius: Finland’s Gambling Act reform, a practical guide to the new licensing regime
- Mondaq (Hannes Snellman): Finland’s gambling market reform, key points
- Hannes Snellman: Which kind of marketing is allowed?
- Nordic Law: Recent developments in the Finnish gambling reform
- Nordia Law: Entering Finland’s new iGaming market
- Eversheds Sutherland Finland: The reform of the Finnish gambling system
- Bonusetu analysis of the Administration Committee report (via Yahoo Finance)
- iGaming Business: Licensing window opens for Europe’s newest market
- iGaming Expert: Veikkaus and Finland face black market battle as monopoly ends
- From Policy to Politics: Is there a Nordic model for the regulation of alcohol and gambling?
- Yogonet: Sweden’s gambling tax increase to 22%
- iGaming Business: What can Finland learn from its Nordic neighbours?
- Gambling in Norway
- StatCounter Global Stats: Search engine market share in Finland
- Google Search Central: Spam policies for Google web search
- KKV: Identifiability of advertising
- Peluuri: Help with gambling problems
Frequently asked questions
When does Finland’s online gambling market open?
Finland’s licensed online gambling market opens on 1 July 2027. Operators have been able to apply for licences from the National Police Board since 1 March 2026, and from 1 July 2027 the Finnish Supervisory Agency takes over licensing and supervision.
Is affiliate marketing allowed in Finland after 2027?
No. Affiliate marketing isn’t among the permitted marketing channels in Section 51 of the Gambling Act, so it’s effectively prohibited for licensed operators. Influencer marketing of gambling is banned as well.
Can casino operators buy backlinks in Finland?
Paid articles that promote gambling on third-party Finnish sites are likely to fall outside the marketing channels the Gambling Act permits. Operators can still earn links through news coverage, B2B media, sponsorships and corporate content, and any paid link must also carry rel=”sponsored” under Google’s rules. Get legal advice before running any paid link activity.
What is the gambling tax in Finland for licensed operators?
Licensed operators pay a flat tax of 22% of gross gaming revenue. They also pay a EUR 29,000 application fee and an annual supervision fee that depends on gaming revenue.
Why is SEO important for gambling operators in Finland?
SEO is important because the Gambling Act closes affiliate marketing, influencer marketing and most bonuses. Organic search, together with brand search ads, becomes one of the main ways Finnish players find licensed operators online.