Finland’s Veikkaus bolsters supervisory board

Finnish gaming monopoly Veikkaus has appointed more than a dozen new supervisory board members as it seeks to boost its responsible gambling standards.

The supervisory board, which is responsible for overseeing corporate governance and responsible gambling, as well as coordinating stakeholder engagement efforts, will be led by chair Jukka Gustafsson and vice chair Jani Mäkelä. 

Parliamentarians and Ilmari Nalbantoglu of the Finnish Olympic Committee are among the 13 new members.

The board consists of 28 members including 13 representatives of the country's political parties, 13 representatives of Veikkaus' stakeholders and two representatives of its employees.

Among its responsibilities, the supervisory board issues an opinion on the financial statements and the auditor's report to the general meeting and submits a report to the Prime Minister's Office on the development of gambling activities and activities related to the prevention of gambling.

Last month Veikkaus committed to introducing a series of tighter responsible gaming controls as it looks to enhance social responsibility efforts.

This will see the operator put an end to marketing for its land-based slot machine business, as well as reducing the total number of terminals in operation throughout Finland.

Veikkaus currently operates 18,500 slot machines in the country, though this number will be reduced alongside the introduction of compulsory identity verification on each machine. The new ID controls will be introduced from October 2020 to January 2022, with an estimated 3,000 machines to be taken out of service. The operator has decided that ID verification will be mandatory for all products aside from card games and land-based gambling.

“[These measures] will make it possible to build a holistic ecosystem for safer gambling, and create more opportunity to prevent money laundering offences,” chief executive Olli Sarekoski explained.