Hippos ATG claims Finnish licence covering casino from 2027

Hippos ATG Oy, the Finnish company owned jointly by Swedish operator ATG and Suomen Hippos, says it has been granted a licence under Finland's new Gambling Act. According to the company's 19 October release, the licence covers horse betting, sports betting and online casino, and Hippos ATG plans to offer all three to Finnish customers from 1 July 2027, the day the licence system takes effect. It will trade under the ATG brand.

Hippos ATG is the second operator to say publicly that it has a Finnish licence, after Wildz Group on 15 October. As with Wildz, the news comes from the company. Licence decisions are made by the National Police Board (Poliisihallitus), which handles licensing until the end of June 2027. iGaming Business reports that the licence runs for five years, based on an image of the licence shared on social media. Five years is the maximum term under section 14 of the Act.

What the company said

"We have always been convinced that we meet the requirements for a licence. A positive decision is the most important prerequisite for establishing ourselves in the market, so this is a big day for us," chief executive Mikael Bäcke said in the release (our translation from the Swedish).

Bäcke said the application went well beyond paperwork: the company had to build processes for responsible gambling, anti-money laundering, information security, technical compliance, internal control, risk management and corporate governance. He described ATG as the largest gambling operator in the Nordics and the market leader in horse betting in Sweden and Denmark.

Who is behind it

Hippos ATG is a 50/50 joint venture between AB Trav och Galopp (ATG) and Suomen Hippos, the Finnish association for trotting and horse breeding. It is based in Helsinki. The company says its purpose is to secure the funding base for Finnish equestrian sport and horse breeding once the market opens, and under its profit model 60% of its profit goes back to Finnish horse sport and horse breeding.

According to iGaming Business, the venture will run on ATG's in-house gaming platform. In September, its chief compliance officer, Antti Koivula, said at SBC Lisbon that Veikkaus and offshore operators already active in Finland will have customer databases that may give them a head start over companies starting from scratch, iGB reported.

What the licence covers under the law

Under the new Gambling Act, licence holders can offer six game types: fixed-odds, variable-odds and virtual betting, online casino games, online bingo and online slot games. Lotteries and pool games, and gaming machines and casino games, stay under exclusive licences for a state-controlled company (section 5).

Yle reported on 23 September that the Police Board had received 75 applications by 22 September and expected processing to take six to eight months. From 1 July 2027, the Finnish Supervisory Agency (Lupa- ja valvontavirasto), which has existed since 1 January 2026, takes over as licensing and supervisory authority.

What it means for players

Nothing changes in Finland before 1 July 2027. Until then, all legal gambling runs through Veikkaus, and no private operator can take licensed bets or casino play from Finnish players, whatever it has announced. The Police Board has also been acting against sites that market to Finland in the meantime, including fines on gambling marketing and a marketing ban with a conditional fine on MagicPoro.

Once the market opens, the regulator's own register of licence holders, not a company press release, is the place to check whether a site is licensed in Finland.

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