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Finland’s shift to an open gambling market is coming with some of the restrictive data-reporting rules in Europe.
As part of the country’s new licensing framework, operators will be required to send player activity, betting transactions, and account-level data straight into the regulator’s systems in a format defined by the National Police Board.
The draft rules, published for comment under reference POL‑2025‑77152, outline how every licensed operator must deliver complete, unaltered records of gameplay, financial movements, and player-profile changes through a dedicated system.
Registration data, deposits, and bonuses to be recorded
The draft regulation makes clear that Finland’s new licensing system will depend on operators supplying detailed data directly to the supervisory authority. Under the Gambling Act, both exclusive‑licence holders and commercial licensees must provide full records of gaming transactions and gaming‑account activity in a format set by the regulator.
The Police Board’s Lottery Administration is responsible for defining this format until mid‑2027, after which the Licensing and Supervisory Agency will take over.
The rules require operators to use the regulator’s interface and sign each day’s data with the Official Control Signing Service, a digital signature tool that ensures the information cannot be altered.
Operators must send player-profile information, including identification details, registration data, and any limits the player has set on spending or losses. They must also report all bonuses, free spins, and other rewards offered to players, along with any changes to those rewards.
Financial operations like deposits, withdrawals, wagers, wins, and bonus conversions must also be delivered as separate transaction files. Each category has its own naming rules, structure, and mandatory fields, ensuring that the regulator receives uniform data from every operator.
The requirements are not optional. The Gambling Act gives the supervisory authority the power to issue binding technical orders, and the draft rules fall under that mandate.
EU confirmation needed
The government’s reform programme sets out to open the gambling market to competition while reducing harm. To achieve that, the supervisory authority needs access to reliable, standardized data from every operator.
The Police Board notes that the Gambling Act includes several sections allowing the authority to issue technical regulations. These cover licence‑application requirements, system reliability, randomness controls, reporting deadlines, and the submission of information needed to calculate supervisory fees.
The data-delivery rules fall under section 45, which specifically authorizes the regulator to define how gaming transactions and account events must be transmitted.
Before the rules can be finalized, Finland must notify the European Commission under Directive 2015/1535. This triggers a mandatory standstill period of three months, during which the proposal cannot be adopted.
If the Commission or another Member State raises concerns about barriers to the free movement of services, the standstill is extended by another month. Only after this process can the regulation be approved.
License application window already open
This draft comes at a moment when Finland is already deep into its transition toward a competitive gambling market. The licence application window has opened, and global operators are lining up to enter a system that, until now, has been closed to everyone except Veikkaus.
The shift marks the end of Finland’s long-running monopoly, even though the state operator will continue to hold exclusive rights over certain high-value products. Veikkaus will still run Lotto, Eurojackpot, and all land-based slot machines, but everything else is moving into a regulated commercial model.
With the market scheduled to open on July 1, 2027, companies seeking approval must now prepare for strict technical and reporting demands, including the real-time data-streaming rules outlined in the draft regulation.
