Finland is debating a countrywide ban on all gambling marketing which is expected to pass as early as the autumn. The ban would outlaw “indirect advertising and other sales promotion activities”, including all sponsorship in exchange for the display of a brand’s logo. This would prevent gaming operators from sponsoring sports event or players, and from branding media such as beer mats or taxi cabs, even when no direct enticement to gamble is made.     

Finland’s national gambling market is said to be worth €2.2bn annually. The value of the overall market, which includes illegal betting with online operators, is unknown, although 41 % of Finns are understood to gamble on a weekly basis.

The legislation is being debated by the Finnish parliament and is expected to pass due to the widespread support in Finland for the country’s prohibitive gaming regulation. According to a survey in June 2008 by Veikkaus Oy, Finland’s state monopoly for betting and lottery, almost 82% of Finns support the present monopoly system.     

The ban is being proposed in response to EU pressure to rectify Finland’s position on the legality of its monopolies, and would affect both foreign operators and local gaming monopolies, including Veikkaus Oy; RAY, which operates casinos; and Finntoto, which runs horse betting.    

Despite challenges from the likes of Ladbrokes and Paf, the gambling company of Finland’s semi-autonomous Åland islands, Finnish courts have so far held that the monopolies do not violate EU law. However, the EU Commission filed an official complaint against Finland’s gambling regime in 2006 which is still pending.     

In rejecting an application by Ladbrokes for a local license in May 2007, the Finnish Supreme Administrative Court also noted that Veikkaus Oy’s marketing activities are “not without problems” under EU law, which provides that states may only market their monopolies to direct the inevitable demand for gambling toward the national operator, not to increase the overall demand for gambling. However the Court concluded that Veikkaus Oy’s ”problematic” behaviour can be remedied by amending the marketing regulations, leading the Finnish parliament to act.     

Pekka Takki, a gaming lawyer at the Helsinki office of law firm Bird & Bird, said: “In my opinion the present Finnish model can’t hold. But political opinion and public opinion here are always in support of the monopoly.”

Betfred and Turf TV, the television service jointly owned by software group Alphameric and 31 racecourses including Ascot, Goodwood and Newmarket, have settled the legal dispute between them, with Betfred now set to show Turf TV in its 734 betting shops.
 

Betfred was until now the only major UK bookmaker to have not signed up to a deal with Turf TV, which bookies said charged them far more for its exclusive coverage of racecourses than they were charged by former supplier Satellite Information Services (SIS), which is part owned by Ladbrokes and William Hill.
 

Speaking to EGRmagazine.com, Betfred managing director John Haddock would not disclose the terms of the deal signed in the early hours of yesterday morning, but said it did not mark a defeat for Betfred. Haddock said: “You wait until the deal and the timing is right for the business. At this precise time, the deal was right, they were coming to us on a continuous basis wanting to do something with us, and that time, it was right for this business. So we agreed to it.”
 

The deal marks the end of Betfred’s involvement in a long-running legal spat between major bookmakers and Turf TV owner Amrac, the joint venture between Alphameric and Racecourse Media Services, the media business owned by 30 of Britain’s largest racecourses.
 

In September 2007 bookmakers including Betfred, Coral, Ladbrokes and William Hill brought legal action against Amrac over the rights to broadcast live races from Amrac racecourses, arguing that racecourse owners conspired to undermine SIS by backing Turf TV and  fixing the price of the racetrack feeds it supplies in breach of UK competition laws.
 

In October last year, the group lost their case when the High Court ruled that such collective action was the racecourses’ only way of establishing a competitor to SIS, which had previously enjoyed a monopoly.  
 

The court then rejected a conditional counterclaim brought during the trial by a number of the racecourses, who alleged that the bookmakers had colluded unlawfully to pressurise them to reduce prices by boycotting Turf TV and agreeing to withdraw sponsorship from certain racecourses that had licensed media rights to Amrac. The counterclaim would only have applied only if the bookies’ challenge had been successful. 

In December, the same judge who had heard the original trial granted leave to the bookies to appeal the first judgment, but refused leave to Amrac to appeal in relation to its counterclaim. 

John Haddock said that Betfred withdrawing from the legal action and signing a deal with Turf TV was “nothing to do with the other bookmakers.”

 

“This is a business decision by Betfred, nothing to do with Ladbrokes, William Hill or Coral. This is a Betfred decision.”