Finland’s National Police Board expects licence application processing times of around six months
Finland’s National Police Board has advised that licence applications to operate in the re-regulating Finnish gambling market are currently taking six months to process due to the high volume of applications.
The re-regulated Finnish gambling market will open on 1 July 2027, ending the ineffective monopoly held by state-owned gaming operator Veikkaus over betting and online gaming.
The National Police Board’s Gambling Administration unit has been accepting B2C licence applications from operators since 1 March and has received 50 applications to-date.
The Board said in a statement Monday that current application processing times are running at six months and urged applicants to be patient.
“We hope that applicants will avoid constantly contacting us about the processing status of their application, as answering enquiries takes time away from the processing of applications,” said Juha Katainen, senior adviser at the National Police Board. “The best way applicants can help the processing of their application is by following the instructions given and submitting their application carefully.”
This includes only submitting documents that have been requested by the Board.
“The reliability and suitability of the applicants will be evaluated on the basis of documents, such as register extracts, certificates and various reports, submitted by the applicant,” Katainen added. “The complexity of processing and evaluating applications is affected by the fact that the majority of applicants are foreign.”
The Police Board continues to accept B2C licence applications and will remain responsible for B2C licensing until the re-regulated market opens, at which time authority will transfer to the Gambling Supervisory Agency and B2B licences will become available.
B2B providers would then have one year in which to secure licenses to continue to serve the market.