National Finnish Online Poker to Begin?

An upcoming indirect ban on online gambling had been announced by the Finish authorities last week. This was by forcing the Finnish online poker players to claim back losses in an online game through a law. This automatically would deter online poker firms from allowing Finnish nationals from taking part in the game. However, the Finnish Minister of Culture and Sports, Stefan Wallin has introduced a proposal that could well mark the start of national online poker in Finland. He defends his proposal by calling the system running online gambling stations as “unsatisfactory”. But most important reason of all that he sites is that profits from the business are not profits at all. This is because revenue from online poker and gambling is going to firms situated outside the state and hence the national authorities are facing problems and hefty losses.

Mr. Wallin wants online gaming in Finland to be organized and metabolized by Veikkaus or the Finnish Slot Machine Association (RAY). He believes that state authorized online gaming will prevent under-age gamblers and help maintain a civic and law-abiding society on the whole.

Kari Passo, a heavyweight honcho in the Ministry of social Affairs and Health begs to differ. According to him it is unethical and biased. He maintains that if online gaming is presumed harmful to the Finnish citizens, it will be abolished completely. The state should not offer an alternative gambling source, justifying it as a state-run controlled initiative.

Passo says Finland shall not follow Sweden’s example as allowing the citizens to gamble while blocking off the rest is a wrong procedure. Though the Svenska Spel, the Swedish state-run gambling site is a point in both the arguments. While Passo maintains that ot has done little to expel the problems associated with online gambling within Sweden, Wallin points to the high effectiveness and success of the gambling site as an epitome for Finland to follow.

Yet as the debate rages on within the authorities, online gambling and poker sites make millions each year from Finnish nationals. The over-zealous Finnish populace, like the rest of Scandinavia is a sucker for poker and other gambling games. This helps foreign gambling sites set by international firms religiously milk the money out of the wealthy as well as ordinary citizens in the state. The ban was supposed to help cope with this problem, but now Wallin’s comments have added a new twist to the tale!