It seems that in Finland, the use of authentication tools is producing positive results in controlling gambling.
The gambling industry in Finland is a bit different from in many other countries. Veikkaus is the government-owned gambling company in Finland. One of their policies is to attempt to introduce compulsory authentication in the country.
This is not the situation at present but gradual change is on the way. The plan is that Veikkaus will make compulsory authentication for all of their games by the end of 2023.
One area where this is not needed is for slot machines run by Veikkaus. Mandatory slots authentication is already in place. The company say that nearly $500 million less has been lost by their customers since this was introduced.
Susanna Saikkonen is the VP of Sustainability for Veikkaus. Talking about actions that have been taken, she commented: “Our extensive sustainability measures are aimed at reducing problem gambling in particular. Our most recent indicators suggest that we are definitely going to the right direction. In other words, slots gaming is clearly at a turning point.”
There have been other moves taken by Veikkaus. Loss limits have shown to be an effective method at curbing problem gambling. This has been in place for a fair while now, having been introduced four years ago. Loss limits are for all their fast-paced games that Veikkaus have. Between September and October, there were 100,000 customers who reached their loss limits and had to stop playing.
The policy sees players having to set daily and monthly loss limits. Those two months of September and October saw those limits hit by a figure 60% higher than in the previous months of 2021. Lauri Halkola, who is the Chief Data Officer and VP of Data and Analytics at Veikkaus, said that “over 80% of the hits concerned self-imposed loss limits of under €200.”
It’s good news for Finland when it comes to gambling problems. There have been recent surveys conducted by Taloustutkimus Oy which were commissioned by Veikkaus. They showed that the percentage of the adult population who feel that they have a gambling problem is down to an all-tie low of 0.8%.
Halkola believes that the reduced figure is a result of the loss limits. She commented: “Ever since the compulsory loss limits were introduced, gambling has fallen significantly in the groups of both men and women, and in all age groups, and the differences between gambling rates have evened out.”
A recent Gambling Commission report showed promising signs for figures in the UK. The rate of problem gambling slid from 0.6% to 0.3% in the past year.
