Finland's 'Silent Outflow': How Estonian Casinos Played a Part in the 2027 Reform
eTravel Wire/10347296

HELSINKI - eTravelWire -- Finland's decision to end the Veikkaus monopoly and open a licensed online gambling market on July 1, 2027 is usually framed as a policy modernisation. It was something narrower than that. The new act (HE 16/2025 vp) is a concrete response to what Bonusetu calls Finland's 'silent outflow': a slow, measurable shift of Finnish gambling demand to foreign operators that the monopoly could not match. Bonusetu.com, a market intelligence platform for the Nordic iGaming sector, lays out what broke in the old system and why Estonia-licensed operators feature so prominently in the rewrite.

The Failure Wasn't Subtle

By 2024, the Finnish exclusive-rights system (yksinoikeusjärjestelmä) had lost roughly half of the country's digital gambling market to foreign operators. The old framework was trying to solve three distinct problems at once, and solving none of them cleanly.

• Channeling rate (kanavointiaste): close to 50% of Finnish digital gambling spend was leaving the monopoly for sites based outside the country, with public-finance tax loss estimated at €150–250 million per year.
• Consumer protection: player safeguards applied only to Veikkaus, which meant the half of the market operating offshore was, by definition, outside the Finnish regulator's reach.
• Product competition: Veikkaus's online product set could not match what international operators offered, and the monopoly could not legally advertise the way its competitors did.

"The old system didn't fail in one place; it failed in several. Half the digital market was offshore. Consumer protection was piecemeal. The monopoly couldn't compete on product or price. None of this was controversial inside Finnish policy circles for years; the 2027 rewrite is what 'something must change' finally looks like in statute," says Tommi Korhonen, CEO of Bonusetu.com.

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Where the Demand Went

HE 16/2025 vp names the destinations of that offshore demand explicitly: Malta and Estonia. Malta absorbs the volume it does for regulatory reasons. Its licensing framework has supplied pan-EU operators for two decades. Estonia absorbs the volume it does for reasons closer to home. Tallinn is 80 kilometres from Helsinki. Finnish-language interfaces on Estonia-licensed sites are routine. Estonia is an EU and EEA member, so winnings from Estonia-licensed operators remained tax-free for Finnish players under Income Tax Act rules that pre-date the 2027 reform.

The result is a market segment that already exists, is already being used by Finnish players, and has its own consumer-facing category on Bonusetu at https://www.bonusetu.com/virolaiset-nettikasinot/. The 2027 reform does not create this segment. It formalises its position inside the Finnish system.

The 2027 Reset

The new framework makes the licence (rahapelitoimilupa) available to any EEA-established operator. Estonia-licensed casinos can apply directly. Operators that join the Finnish system keep their players' winnings tax-free; operators that stay outside become taxable for their Finnish customers. The practical effect is a pull toward inclusion: the players are already there, and the tax geography now rewards operators who step onto Finnish regulatory ground.

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"Estonian operators don't need to do anything exotic to fit the new system. They already hold EEA licences. What 2027 does is give them a Finnish door to walk through, and give Finnish players a tax-safe way to use them," says Korhonen.

About Bonusetu.com Established in 2016, Bonusetu.com is a leading market intelligence platform for the Nordic iGaming sector. We specialize in analyzing regulatory frameworks, software integrity, and payment technologies to provide Finnish consumers and stakeholders with transparent, actionable data.

For more information, please visit https://www.bonusetu.com.

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Contact

Tommi Korhonen
CEO of Bonusetu.com
media@bonusetu.com