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A daily podcast delving into the biggest stories of the day throughout the sports betting and igaming sector.
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2026 has already proven to be a very uh busy year even though we're only a few days into the new year. Welcome to iGaming Daily brought to you by OptiMove, the creator of positionless marketing and the number one player engagement solution for iGaming and sports betting operators. I'm Fernando Nott, Media Manager for SBC and your host for today where I'm joined by two of the busiest journalists of the SBC media team, Ted Armclay, editor of SBC News. How are you today? I'm good, thank you, mate. Yeah, been a busy ice, like you say, lots of meetings, some conferences, interviews, the works, been another solid event. Great, great to hear. And also editor for iGaming, expert, the busiest of them all, Joe Streeter. How are you today, mate? To let you in to break the fourth wall a little bit, I'm a little bit uh shaken because I was just walking the corridor and I glance up, quite a way up actually, and who is walking by me but Le Predateur Francis Unganu walking straight past me. I tried to take a picture but my hand was shaking. I believe the kids say Aura. That is a man with a lot of aura right there. I have no idea. I don't want ask him too many questions. What a man, what a man that heaviest puncher in history of combat sports. I didn't want to test out that record, yeah, quite something. You know, when you meet somebody famous and they kind of... They have all that aura. that aura. They just start behaving like Laura. um On this topic, be fair though, Joe, you've been doing a bit of boxing at Ice, haven't you? Yeah, so there's the behind the gloves... It's an initiative, a movement. It's run by Lee McFarlane and Julia Weigant. They take out a gym ah every morning before the conference, ah every day. These training sessions go on. They're brilliant. There's some real momentum behind it. People really get involved. uh You see it changes the way people look at events as well. People are healthier at the events. uh It's a great form of networking, a different type of networking. I can't speak highly enough of these events. They are so good. um Yeah, just a brilliant time and really a great thing that happened at this event as well. Is it something you do back at home? Training in the morning, early before going into the office? You know what, I do every now and then. But doing it here really is a good thing, right? Like get the endorphins going in the morning as hard as it is to... Call yourself out of bed at 6 a.m. before you start work. Ferb, what's your training schedule? My training schedule right now is getting off the computer and onto the couch and putting on some Netflix. I didn't like the ending of Stranger Things, but whatever. We mentioned it was a busy start of the year. And uh people who have really been busy is definitely the Finnish government because after presidential approval they finally published the gambling act for Finland gambling. So why don't we start by breaking down what happened? Yeah, so the legislation, the Finnish gambling act was approved in December by parliament and then I believe it was given the final presidential sign off earlier this month. And now, as you say, it's been published in full. and check out all the different clauses of it publicly. It's been published on the Finnish government's website. We already knew a lot of the main conditions anyway, but obviously for any relevant stakeholders, you can now go on and check that out and try and find any parts of it that relate to your business. Some of the main sort of facts I know, the market will be launching on the 1st of July, 2027. It was initially meant to be the 1st of January, but they decided to push that back by six months. I think you can start applying for licenses in March. year and B2B license applications will open a year into the market's activity, I think. Obviously the background behind it is that it's going to change the monopoly in Finland held by Vyckhouse, a state-owned company. Vyckhouse will continue to operate the national lottery and land-based gaming, but then online betting, online gaming, uh bingo, slot, online bingo, should say, digital slots and so on, that's all going to be open to the market. uh and BTC companies can start trying to get in there and battle it out for market share. Ted and I were at the um Gaming in Finland conference um on Monday evening? Monday night. Yeah, on Monday night. And it was brilliant. And I've heard lots of discussions on the show floor as well. There's been a real buzz about Finland. So yeah, really interesting market. Ted lays out the timeline. There are still things that are uncertain. um And these things are important. think it was kind of widely said that they've got things wrong when it comes to some of the marketing restrictions. Some of the marketing restrictions are quite tight and it may be going to make life harder for the smaller operators. We know obviously a big one is no affiliate marketing, affiliates are prohibited. But they're obviously going to stay in the market affiliates um and uh they won't go anywhere. So it's going to be tough. to ensure that the regulated market can continue what's been a good trajectory of market swing from the black market to the regulated market, um especially if you're not allowing affiliates. Right, and how important is it that um Finland is finally ending the bike house monopoly and right now is uh opening the market to the private companies? It's a big moment for European gaming, obviously. It's especially... It's one of the more, for the industry, it's one of the more positive stories we've had in Europe after, in what has been a pretty heavy year, know, conversations about uh increasingly strict regulations, lots of concerns about societal impacts, consumer protection, taxation, obviously, I know we talk tax to death on this podcast, but it is an important topic. And then, Finland coming in and opening the market is something that people have been... anticipating for a while, have been looking forward to for a while. Obviously any new market launch is going to get people excited, a prospect of new revenue, new customers, new audiences to engage and so on. Obviously like Joe said though, there are still some areas of it where there's a few concerns around some of the things that were criticized, things that were actually criticized by some Finnish MPs of being a bit too vague around marketing, that they're not quite sure what. the scenario will be until the market goes live. But yeah, and it's also just a win for consumer protection as well because one of the main reasons that the Finnish government is doing this is overhauling the monopoly is because of the amount of black market and offshore and unlicensed firms that were targeting Finland and people obviously were gambling with these companies that aren't subject to any player protection requirements under the state law. So it's a good win for consumer protection and by extension and probably even a bigger rationale for Finnish government actually, it's going to be a tax win for them, isn't it? Because they're going to regulate the market, bring companies in who are paying for the license fees and paying a tax on GGR straight to them instead of offshore firms who obviously don't do that. You guys mentioned you were in gaming in Finland last Monday. So what was the reaction of the attendees or the industry about Finland finally making a move on the gaming market. Yeah, it's obviously massive excitement. I the ceiling for the Finnish market is really high. um Finnish people love to gamble. um They're unique in their trends. I don't think they're like even any other Nordic nation. They're very unique in how they gamble, but they love to gamble. um And yeah, it's a strong market. on a good trajectory at the moment of being one of the few European markets that is shifting. Black market engagement is shifting towards the regulated market. So yeah, a lot of excitement, but also a degree of nervousness around making sure that the regulation is right. And as a personal prediction, I do think there will be teething problems in the market as it opens up, I think. But it's just about being adaptive and kind of fixing those and having a a government and a regulator that works with operators and works with the industry to ensure that it's the safest and most efficient market as possible you know learning mistakes from kind of other European markets where they've gone wrong and they've kind of worked against uh the industry in many ways. I think we should expect some secondary legislation after from some of the conversations I've had. after the market's gone live, there'll probably be some more legal changes, legislative changes. B2B licensing moment that you mentioned, that will be a big moment, right? I think that will maybe be a time when, a crossroads when maybe other changes happen as Yeah, yeah. And also like I because there'll probably will be some teething problems and then the industry and, you know, the regulator and the politicians and MPs and so on will want to look at that and go, right, what changes we need to make to... achieve what Joe said, an efficient market. I do think an area of concern will continue to be marketing and advertising because if we look at what happened in the Netherlands for example, the market was re-regulated and then there was what a lot of MPs described as a bombardment of advertising or an explosion in advertising and things like that and that then ultimately led to the advertising restrictions that we now have in the Netherlands which are quite strict. and a lot of people attribute those to the increase in black market activity in the Netherlands. So there is a danger that perhaps something similar could happen in Finland because Finnish consumers are obviously only used to ever seeing adverts for the Vychow state monopoly. And from the 1st of July, 2027, they'll start seeing adverts and marketing for a lot of other private companies. So there is a danger that perhaps some people will react negatively to that. And that is something that people should keep in mind. even though obviously there is lot of optimism for what's going to happen. Yeah, it's a valid point and also, you know, we spoke about uh kind of breaking the monopoly a few times and kind of ending the monopoly. That's something that's easier said than done when it's so well established. need the framework to be complementary and to allow operators of all sizes really to compete if you are going to end a monopoly in a market where it has been so strong with... you know, like it with Mike House in Finland. Europe's mistakes, advertising regulation. Remember those two things. We're going to do a very quick break and we'll pick it right back up after this very short break. And we're back with More Eye Gaming Daily to continue discussing European regulation. course, Finland, big story of the week, ah but still a lot of concerns around the marketing regulation, which has been, of course, a topic that's been uh very present all around Europe and especially in Spain. where I was uh in Spain, or I was in Spain actually, yeah. I keep getting lost, like I've been speaking in English so much, I don't realize I'm in Spain, but here in Barcelona we had of course the gaming in Finland you guys mentioned, but also the gaming in Spain, organized by Gaming in Europe of course. em And uh the concerns in Spain are similar to those that the Finnish are seeing right now with regulation because of course, Spain comes from a royal decree that ban advertising, that enforced a blanket ban on gambling and advertising in the country. Then it got overturned recently, but of course, all the pandemic uh period where the gaming industry, of course, grew and grew because of course people were were em recluded in their houses. um The Spanish operators. missed there an opportunity there because they couldn't advertise properly. But who did advertise properly? The unregulated uh operators, of course, the illegal market. that remained a big topic of discussion in Spain. And that was covered in gaming in Spain, of course. uh It's interesting you mention it, because also in Italy, they're going through changes where many years ago, they brought in the dignity decree where football sponsorships and front of shirt sponsorships were prohibited for gambling operators and yeah, they're going through a transformation now uh and they are, yeah, it seems like they're in the process of bringing back football front of shirt sponsorships in football, right? Yeah, it was a point of contention I think in Italy for quite some time, wasn't it? Because Obviously the operators, it's useful for them for the marketing. It's the way of engaging one of your most important audiences, which is football fans, especially in Italy, which is obviously a country with such a huge football culture and some massive teams like AC Milan, Inter and so on. the football clubs as well weren't particularly happy with that ban either in that decree. think a lot of them weren't because it cut off a very useful, a very lucrative source of revenue for them, of commercial revenue. We did obviously see some deals getting around it though, didn't we? and more affiliate based ones. Italy is going through a regulatory adjustment as well, it launched a new marketplace in November. It's still a very big one, it's the second biggest market in Europe after the UK by GGR I believe. A lot of companies are quite receptive to the tax framework as well, think it's a lot less of a burden than it is in the Netherlands and Germany than it will be in the UK. So I think can expect Italy to continue developing this year as quite a promising market in Europe. And Ted, I would be remiss of me to not mention, as you mentioned, football culture, to not pay homage to one of the most charismatic sports stars I've met at one of these events, who I met this week uh on the Digitane stand, Alessandro Del Piero. He was fantastic alongside Louis Figo, but yeah, Del Piero truly stole the show. He was brilliant. a legend, so much charisma, uh just fantastic. Yeah, absolute class by Alessandro Del Piero. I think you'll never convince me that there's any better football than that of the late 90s, early 2000s. mean, that's the best football there ever was and there ever will be. But speaking about the future, of course, Finland looking out to what's going to happen with their marketing relation. Spain also going back at it. with uh the new bill that's going to be discussed this year in the country about, of course, gambling advertising. um So a lot to hashtag wait and see for the future. What are you guys most looking forward to see this year or what are you expecting to cover as editors of your sites in 2026? I'll jump in first. think we can... I've talked about this before, but I think we're just going to expect a lot of regulatory adjustments, adjustments to the new financial landscape that operators are going to find themselves in, particularly in Europe, changes to marketing, changes to business structures and things like that, potentially some mergers and acquisitions as a result of that as well. I think we'll kind of see some of that in Latin America as well, I'd imagine, with some of the new tax frameworks are coming into play in some countries, obviously Brazil being a big one, the changes there. I think we're going to continue to see operators looking at new markets, new frontiers as well. I think we're going to see some European firms trying to push into other Latam places beyond Brazil, given that the situation there is starting to get a bit more, was mirroring Europe and it becoming a bit more like regulatory tense, politically tense, the new taxes and so on. I think Africa, we're going to start seeing a lot more attention there as well. We know that like Super Group has already been em They've marked Africa as a big destination for them. So we'll continue to see that. And we're going to continue seeing this prediction space in the US develop as well and continue to have a potential knock on effect on the betting and gaming industry. Yeah, absolutely. I agree on the Latin side of things. Definitely a different look for Brazil in 2026 with the new tax framework in force late last year. The same as Peru, the same as Colombia. There's a lot of movement around taxation. You mentioned we talked a lot about the decision on both as well. That's not our fault. That's the government's fault. They seem to have all agreed on enforcing uh higher taxation on the gambling industry. Joe. What are your predictions for 2026? Well, I had a few, but Ted's covered every base known to man with that answer there, hasn't he? a greedy boy. Sorry, Just repose me scraps. Repose Ted's. So Joe's just... No, I was a prediction. It kind of taps into what Ted says a little bit. um I have three actually, I'll keep it to try and keep it very free. One around Africa. think Nigeria is... Maybe this is optimistic, but I think Nigeria is going to get some taxation stability. We're going to see some stability in Nigeria. It's been quite a turbulent market in recent times and there's still a big dispute going on there around the gambling framework. But I hope by the end of 2026 we see stability and it retains its status as one of Africa's most prosperous markets. I also believe that there will be some real retail innovation in Europe in 2026. um I think the land-based sector, uh you know, that's bookmakers, betting shops, and also casinos, they're going to be levelled up. um I think we're going to see some real innovation in that space. And as somebody that came from the sector myself, I really hope British bookmakers can kind of thrive as a result of that, think. They can kind of win the PR battle and become hubs of innovation. And for my last... uh prediction is one very very personal to you my friend I believe this hashtag wait and see thing that you're trying to kick off I think it's gonna take off it's gonna take you to the moon I think you're gonna go viral this year fair I think it's really gonna yeah I appreciate it I appreciate Joe yep hashtag wait and see if I should wait and see succeeds Keep up to date with all the predictions and see if the guys got it all wrong. So you can go to their LinkedIn profiles and insult them. Well, you have to subscribe to all the SVC media newsletters. Of course, follow iGamingDaily on all your podcasting platforms and on TikTok. Thank you very much, Ted, Joe, uh and A.M. MacDonald for producing this episode. I'm Fernando Nott, and we'll see you in the next one. Goodbye.