Hippos ATG announces Finland licence ahead of market launch

Hippos ATG, a joint venture between Swedish operator ATG and Finnish racing association Suomen Hippos, has announced that it has been granted a gambling licence ahead of Finland’s upcoming market launch.

Finland is liberalising its previously state-owned monopoly gambling regime, opening its online gambling market up to private operators on 1 July 2027 as part of a major regulatory reform.

Hippos ATG Oy has been granted the licence for a five-year period, according to an image of its licence shared on social media.

“We have worked hard to build a completely new company in Finland and its operating models from the very beginning to meet the requirements of the new Finnish legislation,” Hippos ATG CEO Mikael Bäcke said in a public statement.

“We have always been confident that we will meet the conditions for the licence. A positive decision is the most important prerequisite for entering the market, so this is a significant moment for us.

“After this excellent news, we can focus even more strongly on the products themselves and on finalising the operational entity.”

Hippos ATG prepares for market launch

The JV is the second operator to announce that its licence application had been successful. Malta-based Wildz Group’s became the first to announce it had been granted a Finnish licence on 15 October.

Finland’s National Police Board, which is overseeing the licence application process, has not yet officially confirmed the outcome of any licence applications. iGB has reached out for comment.

ATG (AB Trav och Galopp) is Sweden’s horse racing monopoly operator. It announced the joint venture with Suomen Hippos in 2025. The joint venture later announced it would opt to use the ATG brand when the market launches in 2027 due to its brand recognition.

The company told iGB last year that it would use ATG’s in-house gaming platform and described the move as a “cost-effective solution”.

Around 80 companies have applied for Finnish gambling licences so far. Some market experts have expressed concerns of oversaturation given Finland’s small population. However, Finland has a large grey market currently, which channelisation is expected to tackle.

In a presentation at SBC Lisbon in September, Hippos ATG’s chief compliance officer Antti Koivula predicted that there will be an uneven playing field as the market opens.

Current monopoly operator Veikkaus, as well as offshore-licensed operators active in the market, will have customer databases that may give them a headstart over those “starting from scratch”.