Has gambling reform placed enough safeguards for Finnish football?

Concerns around match-fixing continue to plague Finnish football in the aftermath of substantial investigations throughout 2024 and 2025, according to local media.

Swedish-language newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet (HBL) published the first part of an investigative series today, taking a look at allegations of match-fixing in Finnish football.

These reports come ahead of the launch of the country’s multi-licence betting market in 2027, with the Finnish Gambling Act having been approved by parliament in December and by the President earlier this month.

The Act will abolish the monopoly on gambling held by Veikkaus Oy, the state-owned company. Veikkaus will continue to hold exclusive rights to land-based gaming and lotteries, while private licences will be issued for sports betting, online gaming and online bingo, with the application window opening in March this year.

However, allegations of continued problems with match-fixing and sports integrity may shine a light on how Finland is to deal with these problems post market launch, as the clauses of the bill are fairly limited around this topic.

“Under the new Gambling Act, the provisions most directly relevant to match-fixing require operators to identify and report suspicions of foul play and to suspend betting on the affected markets,” says Antti Koivula, Chief Compliance Officer at Hippos ATG, a joint venture between Swedish operator ATG and Finland’s Suomen Hippos horse racing body.

“In practice, these obligations are framed at a fairly high level, and on their own they are unlikely to have a material impact on match-fixing.”

Investigations continue

This is far from the first time news has broken in Finland of football matches, held at various levels of the game, being at risk of manipulation and integrity violations.

Official figures showed that the number of sports integrity notifications received by the Finnish Sports Ethics Centre (SUEK) rose from under 20 to over 60 in 2023 to 71 in 2024, all amid a four-year investigation into breaches of sports integrity.

This investigation involved SUEX, the national police, Veikkaus and the Football Association of Finland (SPL), and concluded that a number of individuals involved in the Finnish football ecosystem are also involved in illicit betting activities.

According to HBL, this investigation continued throughout the rest of 2025 and into 2026, and multiple match manipulation notifications continued to be received throughout last year. The targeting of amateur matches by illicit betting actors has been particularly specified.

Is Finland ready?

HBL’s reports may raise questions about whether the creation of a more open, multi-licence market on 1 July 2027 will pile more pressure on the Finnish football system, and by extension the larger sports ecosystem, or ease it.

A positive could be that by bringing more betting activity under government supervision under a more open and regulated market could benefit Finnish sports. Authorities would have a better view of the overall system, and benefit from closer cooperation with regulated bookmakers.

However, a counter argument could be that more opportunities to bet legally in Finland will expose more footballers and football officials to options to gamble and by extension the temptation to tamper with matches – especially those in the lower leagues and amateur leagues who may find the prospect more financially enticing.

As it stands, the Finnish Gambling Act does have little mention of sports integrity beyond a requirement for licensed operators to identify and report any suspicious betting activity and cease accepting bets on the affected markets until the situation clarifies.

When the market eventually opens, Finnish policymakers may be prompted to take another look at the Act’s integrity provisions and move to seal any gaps with secondary legislation. The same could also be said of marketing, an area where clauses of the act have been criticised by being too vague in some cases.

There is also the issue of black market and overseas activity continuing even after the Finnish market opens up. Match fixing cases are often linked to betting activity in markets in Asia, as cited in some case in New Zealand last year for example, and so many transaction related to this would still fall outside of the Finnish government’s remit.