Finnish BetBlocker Covers Gaps the 2027 Register Will Miss

Casino Guru paid to put BetBlocker’s blocking app into Finnish in August 2025, more than a year before Finland’s licensed market is due to open. By 22 September 2026 the National Police Board had 75 licence files and had approved none of them, while about 251,000 Finns already gamble on sites outside Veikkaus and the state’s promised register still does not exist.

The press line was language support. The working fact is a hole in Finnish harm control that a licence wave will not close on its own.

The Finnish App Blocks Sites Veikkaus Cannot Touch

BetBlocker is a Scotland-registered charity whose app sits on a phone or computer and stops that device from opening gambling URLs in its database. Casino Guru, which ranks online casinos and runs a Global Self-Exclusion Initiative, funded the Finnish translation and support copy. Duncan Garvie, BetBlocker’s founder, said Casino Guru “has consistently led the affiliate market in prioritizing safer gambling” and “has made a real-world difference to thousands of people by supporting us to deliver the service in Finnish.”

Simon Vincze, Casino Guru’s head of sustainable and safer gambling, said the tie-up exists “to promote efforts around cross-jurisdictional self-exclusion.” That phrase is the point of the Finnish build. Veikkaus, the state operator, already lets a customer lock themselves out of Veikkaus games for a set period or until further notice. A fixed-term Veikkaus lock cannot be cancelled while it runs. It also cannot follow the player onto a Maltese or Estonian casino the player opens in the next tab.

FINLAND’S 2023 HARM SNAPSHOT

• Past-year play: 70 percent of 15-to-74-year-olds gambled, about 2.5 million people, down from 78 percent in 2019.
• Problem share: 4.2 percent, about 151,000 people, up from about 3 percent in earlier rounds.
• Men and women: 6.6 percent of men and 1.8 percent of women met that threshold.
• Offshore use: 7 percent of Finns, about 251,000 people, played on sites outside Veikkaus.

Those figures come from the THL 2023 population gambling survey of 5,977 mainland residents. Online play sat at 44 percent. Paf’s Åland games rose from 2 percent to 3 percent of people; play with other foreign companies did not move. Harm rose among men even as overall play fell. Researcher Tanja Grönroos said there had been “no decline in gambling problems among young adults” and that they had “become even more common among men despite an overall reduction in gambling.”

What the App Stops That Finland’s Register Will Miss

Finland has no Spelpaus-style national lock today. The new Gambling Act, signed on 16 January 2026, promises one, but only for licensed games and only once licensed services may start on 1 July 2027. BetBlocker’s own Finnish FAQ is blunt about why a device lock still matters after a country builds a register: national schemes bind the sites that hold a local licence, and “hundreds if not thousands” of operators sit outside that fence.

THREE WAYS TO BLOCK A FINNISH PLAYER

The Interior Ministry’s own questions-and-answers page says the Act does not prohibit play outside the licensed system. Winnings from unlicensed games offered into Finland from another EU or EEA state will be taxed. Identification, company-level transfer limits, a duty of care, and a self-exclusion register for all licensed games are the harm tools the ministry lists. Marketing to people on that register will be banned. Unlicensed URLs will not be on it.

The ministry also records a warning from experts: the Act may raise harm because marketing of high-risk online games will be allowed, with no timing or volume cap on permitted channels, and with no common loss limit that follows a player from one licence holder to the next. A government decree can later set company-level maximum losses. That decree is not the register, and it is not live.

75 Licence Bids Sit With No Approvals

Licence bids opened on 1 March 2026. Superintendent Sanna Kuusela said 24 files arrived in March and 23 in May. The National Police Board said it had 50 applications by 8 June 2026, most of them from foreign firms, with a EUR 29,000 processing fee on each file. Senior adviser Juha Katainen said fitness checks rest on registers, certificates and reports, and that foreign applicants make the work slower.

By 22 September 2026 the pile was 75. Superintendent Tomi Sallinen said no decision had been issued. University of Helsinki researcher Janne Nikkinen said earlier guesses of 40 to 60 licences had already been called a little optimistic, and that Sweden has 89 licences with about twice as many people. He also said 75 files is not the same as 75 companies, because one group can file more than once; he still judged that most of the 75 likely come from different firms. Joel Häkämies, who runs FDJ United’s Finnish work, said Unibet’s May filing had not been approved. Superpesis still signed a multi-year Unibet shirt deal for men’s and women’s pesäpallo, betting on a yes before the police have said yes.

FROM FINNISH TRANSLATION TO LICENCE DAY

1. 27 August 2025: Casino Guru and BetBlocker announce Finnish language support.
2. 16 December 2025: Parliament adopts the Gambling Act.
3. 16 January 2026: The president signs the Act.
4. 1 March 2026: The National Police Board begins taking licence bids.
5. 8 June 2026: The board reports 50 applications.
6. 22 September 2026: The board has 75 files and has approved none.
7. 1 July 2027: Licensed online casino, slots, bingo and betting may start; Veikkaus keeps lotteries, scratch cards, and physical slots and casinos; a new supervisory agency takes over.

Veikkaus remains the only firm that may run or market gambling games until the end of June 2027. The Finnish-language blocker has been sitting in that gap the whole time, and it will still be the tool that reaches sites that never take a Finnish licence after that date.

The New Act Shuts Out Affiliate Marketing

Casino Guru makes its living as a casino directory. Finland’s new marketing list is a problem for that model. Search ads are now named as a permitted channel. Commission-based redirects are not. Helsinki firm Nordic Law says affiliate marketing stays banned because it was left out of the permitted marketing channels in Section 51. The government proposal had already argued that paid redirects blur licensed operators with illegal ones and make mandatory harm notices harder to police.

Police guidance on the current Lotteries Act already treats review and listing sites as marketing when the publisher is paid for clicks through to games. Under the new Act, licence holders may advertise on their own sites and accounts, on TV and radio, in print, at events, and via search for closely related terms, if the volume stays “moderate.” Influencer deals are out. Direct mail needs prior consent. Phone sales are banned. Outdoor ads for online casino and betting are banned. Translating a free, anonymous blocker does not need a tracker link, which is why that project still has a Finnish landing page after the commission door closes.

Operators told the consultation that an affiliate ban would hurt the channelling goal if unlicensed sites kept buying the same traffic. The Act went through anyway. Channelling, in the ministry’s words, is the share of stakes that land with supervised supply. The Act does not publish a target rate. It does say plenty of firms already take Finnish play from outside the monopoly, and that opening licences is the chosen way to pull some of that play in.

A Two-Minute Block That Cannot Be Switched Off

The Finnish-language blocking software is free, carries no ads, and asks for no account. Setup is listed at 2 minutes. The live counters on that page are more than 817,500 blocked sites, more than 3,100 blocked apps, and more than 119,100 active users. The list is updated weekly. A user can install it on as many devices as they want.

Once a gambling lock is on, it stays on for the period the user picked. Support will not help remove it. The period can be extended immediately. It cannot be shortened. That is the product, not a slogan: a person in a spike of urge gets a cooling interval measured in days or years, not a toggle.

HOW LONG A BETBLOCKER LOCK CAN RUN

• Short stops: 1, 2, 3 or 5 days, or 1 or 2 weeks.
• Medium stops: 1, 2, 3 or 6 months.
• Long stops: 1, 2, 3 or 5 years.
• Calendar mode: on and off on dates the user sets in advance, for paydays, weekends or holidays.

The same installer has a parental-control mode that can include the gambling list. BetBlocker was built in 2017 inside ThePOGG, an alternative dispute body, after staff grew uneasy sending addicted complainants to paid blockers. It became a separate charity in 2019, funded by donations, including from gambling firms. Garvie remains the board contact. The Finnish FAQ tells users that UK Gamstop and Swedish Spelpaus are worth joining where they exist, then says those tools stop at the local licence line, which is why a URL blocker still has a job.

A proper global system is still far off, but BetBlocker is doing an excellent job of bringing a free and anonymous blocking solution to those who need it, no matter where they are.

Simon Vincze, Head of Sustainable and Safer Gambling, Casino Guru

Casino Guru Already Said a Global System Is Far Off

Vincze’s line is not new. In a 21 January 2025 progress note on the Global Self-Exclusion Initiative, he wrote that asking operators to join a voluntary worldwide exclusion list had failed for lack of incentive. The campaign then pointed at offshore regulators and at blocking software, which he called the only practical way to self-exclude globally. Casino Guru put BetBlocker on the initiative site because most people writing to that contact form wanted a lock that worked across borders, not another local form.

The Finnish translation is that pivot in a single language. It does not create the global register Vincze still wants. It does not bind a casino that never saw the player’s name. It puts a list of URLs on a device and refuses to take it off until the clock runs out. On 1 July 2026, Casino Guru Academy shipped a free operator course on self-exclusion practice with input from BetBlocker International, so the same pairing is now teaching licence holders how to handle a player who has already asked to be shut out. That course sits beside a market that will not let those licence holders pay a directory for Finnish traffic.

A Quarter-Million Finns Already Play Outside Veikkaus

THL will run a new population survey in autumn 2026, before licensed play starts, and may run it again in autumn 2028. That work is the state’s before-and-after picture. It will not, by itself, lock a phone. The 251,000 people who already play off Veikkaus are the group a Veikkaus peliesto never sees, and they are the group a 2027 register will see only if those sites take a Finnish licence and the player then joins the register.

BetBlocker does not need that licence, that register, or a name. It needs a download, a language the user can follow while their pulse is up, and a period they cannot reverse. Casino Guru paid for the Finnish words. The 75 files at the police board will decide who may advertise around those words. The sites that never file will still be on the list the app already blocks.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on a blocking tool and on Finland’s gambling law. It is for information only and is not medical, legal, treatment, or gambling advice. It does not tell anyone to gamble, to stop gambling, or to install a named product, and it is not a substitute for care. Anyone worried about gambling harm should speak with a qualified clinician or a recognised support service, and anyone who needs advice on the Finnish Gambling Act or on a licence file should consult a licensed lawyer. Figures and statuses follow the cited sources on the dates given and can change as applications are decided and as the 2027 rules take effect.