Finnish Police Crack Down On Lottery Adverts

The Finnish ministry of Interior asked for an interpretation of the law from the police and they provided one, but the state gambling monopolies are not happy about it

There are few words in the English language that make people recoil in wrinkled nose disgust quite the same as Monopoly. It either brings to mind the tight-fisted totally one-sided control of a sphere of business or industry that takes advantage of its position to provide sub-standard service at outrageous prices, or, perhaps far worse, a family inclusive session of the famed board game that resulted in everyone being both bored, and game for anything else gambling news of paint drying would be more fun.

Police Ban Lotto Adverts

• Finnish NPB interpret the law
• State monopoly whine about it
• Believe lottery is “harmless”

Of course the old joke tells us that it is strange that there is only one word for Monopoly, but what is truly strange is that Monopoly, given its definition, is a word made up of two syllables that directly contradict each other. It doesn’t take much language knowledge to work out that mono means one, and poly means many, and that putting the two together makes as much sense as monopolies in business and industry do in the first place. The word is bizarre, the practice simply criminal.

Technically there should be nothing wrong with a monopoly, nationalized industries might not have been everyone’s cup of tea but they were hardly all that objectionable, however in these days of brutal capitalist money madness where rampant profiteering is looked upon as something to be lauded, you simply can’t trust those given a monopoly to oversee to be anything less than ghastly, exploiting their position to make unnecessarily large profits out of people who have no real market choice.

Economic Abuse Of Position

Gambling is a good example of this ridiculous practice, several countries having a state run monopoly control gambling within their borders, and, these days, beyond them in light of exponential rise in online and mobile betting. Typically doing all in their power to eliminate competition through draconian regulation and ridiculously protectionist laws, these protected cash generators for the government are often some of the very worst offenders when it comes to economic abuse of position.

Finland, for example, has eschewed the path of competition and development within its gambling industry instead allowing the continued presence of Veikkaus and Rahaautomaattiyhdistys who cling onto control like Sepp Blatter on crack. They’ve stifled development and progress, stood firm against the open provision of services across EU borders blocking sites like ComeOn! Sportsbook and generally behaved as if they were the only people capable of running a fair gambling operation anyway despite the whole plethora of evidence to the contrary.

Just recently however these monopoly operators, who can’t be called a duopoly because there’s no competition between them, have found themselves at odds with the people directly responsible for supervising them and their activities, which in Finland, rather happily, is the National Police Board. Now you might think that as another organ of the state Finland’s NPB would be unlikely to deal too harshly with these operators, events seem to have proven otherwise.

New Interpretation Of The Law

A request for clarity on the Lotteries Act from the Ministry of Interior led to the NPB providing an interpretation of the legislation that immediately set the cat amongst the pigeons as it not only asked for the police view but whether or not the environment for playing and advertising games had changed. The NPB’s reply came as a bit of a shock to the self-assured monopoly as it clearly stated that the advertising of games at point of sale terminals was illegal under the provisions of the legislation.

Veikkaus, sent into a spin by this new interpretation of Finnish gambling laws, immediately entered into discussions with the NPB which seems in no mood to back down from its stated position. Of course the betting agency instantly claimed that the ban would cost it tens of millions of Euros in terms of turnover which might have sounded far more realistic if the Vice President, Mr. Sarekoski, hadn’t decided to call the lottery games concerned “harmless”.

There’s no doubt that lotteries are hardly the worst form of gambling in the world, but to call them “harmless” at a time when the spotlight of attention is upon them is a tad cavalier to say the very least. For their part the NPB have restated that in their view the advertising and promotion of lotto games at point of sale terminals and cash registers is illegal and must be curtailed forthwith, going so far as to suggest a 200,000 Euro fine for violation of the ban. The wrangling continues.