Finland Not Complying with EU Online Gambling Rules

September 17, 2010 | News Category: Gaming Law

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As the European Union continues their battle to try and get all their member states to conform with the European Commission's guidelines as far as a free market for online casinos goes, more and more EU member nations are appearing in the news simply because they are choosing not to conform.

This time, Finland has decided to go against the European Commission's guidelines, and become more protectionist than they were before. Finland does already have a state monopoly that is already in operation. Finland, along with other Scandinavian states, is somewhat hesitant to follow the EU's free trade, and open licensing that is expected to be used throughout the European Union.

Finland has seen and noted that other Scandinavian countries operate only online gambling monopolies, and they receive huge amounts of taxes directly to their own state's coffers, rather than being shared with others. Since the players in countries with government-run online gambling monopolies have no choice but to do online gambling in this way.

The European Commission has gone after states such as Sweden, Denmark, and others, because they have refused to fall inline with the necessary guidelines, and are now facing possible legal action by the European Union.

Interestingly, Finland is only moving towards online casino monopolies, and other online gambling monopolies now, even though there are other countries that have pending litigation against them for exactly the same reason. It seems that a number of the European Union member states have simply chosen to ignore the EU directives when it regards online gambling. It seems that there is too much at stake, especially for small countries, who rely heavily on the tax income of their online gambling monopolies.

The Finnish market, however, at least up until now, has received much income from advertising money that has been coming into their country from foreign online gambling sites that were targeting the Finnish people. Should the country end up with a state run monopoly, this will affect the media companies' income. This has certainly upset the media, who are also involved in the online gambling debate because of this.

Once there is a monopoly for any industry, the need to do large amounts of advertising ceases, since there are simply no choices available, and therefore, nothing to advertise. The Finnish media is working hard to ensure that the playing field stays level. They have suggested that foreign online gambling operators still be allowed to offer their wares in Finland, even if there is a state owned online gambling site that will also be available.