Finland bans MagicPoro, the operator behind Pelikaani and Bigwin, from marketing to Finnish players, with a €1.2m conditional fine

Finland's National Police Board has ordered MagicPoro, the Estonia-licensed company behind the Pelikaani, Pelikioski, Bigwin and Pottila brands, to stop marketing gambling to Finnish players. The order is dated 31 August 2026 and is backed by a conditional fine of €1.2 million. The case became public on 7 October through documents NEXT.io obtained from the police under Finland's Act on the Openness of Government Activities. MagicPoro appealed, and on 28 September the Helsinki Administrative Court suspended the order until it rules on the appeal, the Finnish gambling news site Voitto.net reported, citing the Police Board and the court. The board has not published a press release, so the order details below come from the police documents as NEXT.io reported them.

What the order does

The police concluded that MagicPoro was targeting Finnish consumers in breach of the Lottery Act, which governs gambling in Finland. The order bans the company from marketing gambling to Finland. That means removing marketing that is already out there as well as producing no new material.

Under the order, the ban would take effect 30 days after MagicPoro was notified and run for 12 months, and the board can extend it by up to another year. For now it is not being enforced (see the appeal below).

According to NEXT.io, this is the first prohibition order the board has issued since Parliament passed Finland's new gambling law in 2025. The board has used the same tools before. In 2023 the board banned BML Group, a Betsson subsidiary, from illegal marketing with a €2.4m conditional fine, and Helsinki's administrative court upheld that order in February 2024.

The €1.2m is a threat, not a bill

A conditional fine (uhkasakko in Finnish) is a threat rather than a penalty: according to NEXT.io, the €1.2m only has to be paid if MagicPoro is ruled to have broken the order. MagicPoro owes nothing today.

The payment block

If the ban takes effect, MagicPoro goes on the board's payment blocking list. Finnish banks and payment providers will then have to stop processing payments to its gambling sites. The police say the block targets money players send to companies that have received a marketing ban. According to Voitto.net, the listing is on hold while the appeal is pending.

How the case built up

The investigation began in autumn 2025 and covered Pelikaani, Pelikioski and Bigwin. The board asked MagicPoro for clarification on 4 November and heard nothing by the December deadline. In April the company replied that it had only received the requests in March. It said its websites were not aimed at any one country and that it had told affiliates to stop using Finnish-language content. MagicPoro told the police: "For more international affiliate sites, the requirement has been to edit the content to be completely country neutral."

The police were not persuaded. In August they found significant marketing still live, including two Pelikioski campaigns on the clipping platform Viralify. In clipping campaigns, a brand pays creators to post short videos. One campaign had 27 creators and about 96,500 views. By then the board had also linked a fourth site, Pottila, to MagicPoro.

The board also warned MagicPoro that a prohibition order could affect any licence application it makes under Finland's new licensing system. MagicPoro had no comment for NEXT.io.

The appeal

MagicPoro appealed to the Helsinki Administrative Court on 23 September, according to Voitto.net. Its main request is for the court to cancel the marketing ban and the conditional fine; failing that, it wants the fine removed or substantially reduced. Among its arguments, it says it was not heard on material the police gathered after its April reply, and that it cannot fully control old content on third-party sites. The court has not assessed those arguments.

In an interim decision on 28 September, the court ruled that the order will not be enforced until it decides the case or orders otherwise. The interim decision does not settle the dispute: the court has not yet said whether the Police Board's order was lawful.

Why it matters

The order shows the tools the police are using against offshore brands ahead of Finland's new licensing system: a marketing ban, a payment block and a warning about future licensing. The warning may matter most. A company that wants a Finnish licence now has a reason to stop marketing to Finland before it applies. For players, Pelikaani, Pelikioski, Bigwin and Pottila operate on an Estonian licence, not a Finnish one. If the order survives the appeal, Finnish banks would have to stop payments to them.

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