Finland’s state-owned gambling monopoly, Veikkaus, has decided to reestablish an internal ethics council that would be tasked with overseeing the company’s work toward providing its services in a socially responsible manner, local news outlet Yle reports.
Veikkaus also announced this week that it has updated its guidelines and these now include a responsibility metric in their reward system that would be tracking customers for signs of addictive behavior.
Veikkaus disbanded its previous ethics council in 2017 when the company was merged with former slot machine operator RAY and former horse racing operator Fintoto. The combined entity was named Veikkaus and is currently the only operator authorized to provide gambling services on the territory of Finland.
Veikkaus’ decision to reestablish its ethics council comes after the company faced massive public backlash over a controversial radio advertising campaign that featured therapists who encouraged frequent gamblers to indulge their habit. The campaign was supposed to run during this year’s edition of the royal races, an annual harness racing championship.
Following the public outcry, Veikkaus decided to pull the ads and commissioned an external evaluation of its advertising practices. The company said that it would use the findings to determine if it needs to implement more measures that would address the issues relating to its marketing activities. The results from the evaluation are due in late September.
Veikkaus administrators were tasked this week to create a road map for the establishment of the ethics council that will be reviewed at the company’s next board meeting.
A New Metric
Following criticism that Veikkaus is not doing enough to ensure that its services are provided in a socially responsible manner, the company also announced that its guidelines now include a responsibility metric in their reward system. As mention earlier, the metric would track for problem gambling behavior.
Commenting on the latest announcement, Veikkaus Chairman Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said in a press release that “responsible values are integral to all of Veikkaus” services” and that they have been “steadily evaluating the emergence of problematic gambling trends.”
Veikkaus is making changes to its responsible gambling policies amid an ongoing debate over whether Finland should replace the current monopoly-based regulatory system with a more liberal one that would enable international companies to obtain licenses to operate in the country and would be in line with the regulatory regimes in most European countries, including neighboring Sweden.
The debate was started by Finnish Prime Minister Antti Rinner who said recently that his administrator could at some point consider liberalizing the local gaming and betting space. According to the country’s top official, the monopoly system “has had a number of positive effects in Finland, but the world is changing and we have to examine the situation in light of that change.”
Meanwhile, Veikkaus also announced plans to reduce the number of slot machines it operates around the country as demand for that type of gambling product is poised to decrease in the coming years.
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