程阳：2014年芬兰(娱乐场)赌场业综述

 

 【中文原文全文】  Mobile cellular subscriptions (per 100 people)
 

Casino Helsinki, which employs 140 full-time staff and 42 part-time staff, is located in the centre of the Nordic nation’s capital. Casino Helsinki unveiled a facelift project for the property’s ten-year anniversary in 2014, including a new sportsbook and the Pajazzo Trattoria restaurant, which opened in February 2014.

 

 Raha-automaattiyhdistys (RAY), the Finnish slot machine association, is the only operator authorised to operate casino games and casino activities in Finland.

 

Finland has a gambling sector built on a foundation of exclusive rights, with three state-owned monopolies effectively controlling the market over: lotteries and betting (Veikkaus); slot machines and casino (RAY); and horse race betting (Fintoto). These rights extend to the offering of online games.

 

Finland’s exclusive rights framework for gambling initially attracted the scrutiny of the European Commission, which launched infringement proceedings in 2006.

 

The country strengthened its sports betting and gambling monopolies at the start of 2012, and in November 2013, the commission confirmed that the revised Finnish gambling system complied with EU law and was applied in a consistent and systematic manner. Consequently, the commission’s case against Finland has now been closed.

 

There is currently just one casino in Finland, the Casino Helsinki. A proposal, which obtained initial approvals, to create a second land-based casino in the eastern part of Finland bordering Russia was abandoned in September 2014.

 

In the first eight months of 2014 RAY reported that revenues for the Casino Helsinki had returned to growth, adding 1.1 percent to €18.5m.

 

RAY’s online casino games have proved far more popular than its poker network, which has struggled to compete with foreign websites since it launched at the end of 2010.

 

Collectively Finland’s gambling monopolies raise €1.7bn every year to finance social activities.

 

 

In 2013, casino revenues of €28m were modestly less than the year before. Net gaming revenues at the Casino Helsinki peaked in 2008 at €32.5m but have since gradually fallen.

 

In 2013, Casino Helsinki introduced a new table games layout and utilised new RFID chip technology. The minimum bets were raised from €2 to €2.5, opening hours were modified and additional poker tournaments were introduced.

 

 

Still, 2013 table games figures struggled against a tough 2012, slipping 3.0 percent in the same period a year before to €8.3m.

 

Poker was hit worse than house-banked table games, with revenues falling 8.4 percent to €1.3m, while other table games saw total hold fall 1.4 percent to €6.99m.

 

Players made 276,601 visits to Casino Helsinki in 2013, down 1.3 percent on the year before but, encouragingly, new registrations grew more than 10 percent to 44,587.

 

A smoking ban is in place in Finland; however, smokingpermitted rooms are allowed. Smoking-permitted rooms are not able to offer any forms of gaming.

 

 

With a population of 5.4m, the Finnish propensity to play lotteries and slot machines is high, with slot usage in the nation among the highest in the world.

 

 

Casino Helsinki’s return to growth in 2014 is ”a notable result even on the European scale”, said RAY managing director Velipekka Nummikoski.

 

 In 2013, RAY’s net gaming revenues grew 2.1 percent to €91.4m (after lottery duty) despite a continuing economic downturn in the country. In an update delivered in September 2014, the slot and casino monopoly reported that gaming revenue across its five core business segments fell 1.5 percent year-on-year in the first eight months of 2014 to €512m.

 

The year-to-date decline is the first that the Finnish slot monopoly has suffered in more than four years, with full-year revenue having improved at a compound annual rate of 5 percent from €650.8m in 2009 to €791.4m in 2013.

 

In an earlier statement, RAY had blamed a “degradation of citizens’ purchasing power” for the year-to-date revenue decline.

 

Revenue from indirectly-operated slots in restaurants, bars and clubs fell, but the contribution from Casino Helsinki grew 1.8 percent over the eight-month period to €18.5m, following a 3.1 percent decline in 2013.

 

 

 

Casino Vaalimaa

 

In 2012, RAY received governmental authorisation to develop a second casino near the Russian border, at a shopping centre less than 200 kilometres from St. Petersburg in Russia.

 

Construction of the property began in 2013, with an intended opening in 2015, but in September 2014 RAY confirmed they had withdrawn from the Vaalimaa project citing “delays and related uncertainty.”

 

 

“The decision to withdraw is a result of delays and related uncertainty. RAY will now take a timeout to carefully reconsider how to prooced with regard to the casino permit,” said RAY managing director Velipekka Nummikoski.

 

 Among the uncertainties were concerns over the introduction of visa-free travel between Russia and Finland to ease the border crossings.

 

A report issued by the Finnish Ministry of the Interior in 2012 suggested that the Russian visa requirement could only be erased in 2018 at the earliest.

 

Several of the Finnish cities that also expressed an interest in hosting the casino in 2012 have now said they would be willing to be considered by RAY again, should it start looking for a new location.

 

Regulator

 

Licences are issued by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The regulatory authorities charged with the supervision of gambling in Finland are the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Gambling Administration of the National Police Board.

 

In 2012, the regulator was able to raise the maximum permitted number of slots and table games in land-based casinos.

 

€10m was mandated as the maximum permitted win at a landbased casino.

 

Contributions to Society, Good Causes

 

Casino Helsinki uses environmentally friendly Ekoenergia energy, which is certified by the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation.

 

Casino Helsinki also handles the recycling of waste from its property.

 

The Finnish Ministry of Education is in charge of allocating profits of the monopoly gambling operators to several social and cultural causes.

 

The profits from RAY’s games are used for promoting health and social welfare in Finland. Funding is annually distributed by 94 member organisations to various health and social welfare organisations based on applications which are assessed fairly and equally. The fund allocation is guided by policies created by RAY’s board of directors and as a result of an agreement prepared with the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health.

 

Nearly 900 organisations receive funding each year. In 2013, RAY noted that €422m was distributed to non-profit organisations and the rehabilitation of Finnish war veterans.

 

Social Responsibility and Player Protection Measures

 

In its legislation, the Finnish government has traditionally put a great deal of emphasis on addiction prevention and player protection.

 

 

Following the reforms which came into effect in 2012, Finland stuck by its monopoly framework, considering gambling not to be a normal economic activity. The European Commission confirmed the compliance of Finland’s gambling laws with EU law in 2013.

 

Finland has put in place player protection measures such as maximum wagers, self-exclusion measures and restrictions to operating hours. Customers must be at least 18 years of age, and must be registered when they enter a venue.

 

A RAY customer programme introduced in Autumn 2012 makes it possible for the player to set limits to control how much time and money they want to spend gambling. So far 200,000 customers have already signed up.

 

 Online Player Protection

 

Before playing online, the player’s name, social security number, age and address are checked by the Finnish gambling corporations.

 

To be allowed to play, customers must:

• Be at least 18 years of age.

• Have a Finnish bank account.

• Have a Finnish social security number.

• Have a permanent address in mainland Finland.

 

Finland forbids any free games or “play-money games” before players are registered, and customers are only allowed one account.

 

The information that players provide is then checked against the Population Information System (PIS), which provides up-to-date and real-time data from the National Public Register.

 

Self-exclusion measures and session timers are in place.

 

Games in which players play each other, including poker, have no daily cap, but there is a maximum limit of €5,000 on all gambling accounts and customers cannot put more funds into their account between 12am and 6am.

 

As part of the registration process for online gambling, players must set daily and monthly loss limits. These limits will apply to all types of online gambling at www.ray.fi.

 

There are maximum daily loss limits of €500 for both slot machine and table games.

 

 

“RAY always welcomes developments which utilise facts and once again Finland and Finnish authorities are showing a consistent and systematic approach towards gamblingrelated issues,” said Jarmo Kumpulainen, director of business intelligence at RAY.

 

 In a 2011 report by Pelihaitat, a Finnish support organisation for gambling, it was found that a total of approximately 2.7 percent of 15- to 74-year-old Finns could be classified as problem gamblers (SOGS points 5+) or had experienced problems trying to control their gaming (SOGS 3-4 points). The 2007 figure was 3.1 percent.

 

Taxation

 

Of RAY’s gross profit (defined as gross gambling revenue), 12 percent is returned to the government as taxes.

 

For bingo games, 5 percent of the total value of winnings and prizes are taxed, but prizes that entitle the player to a free repeat game are not included.

 

 

VLTs and Slot Machines

 

Rahaautomaattiyhdistys (RAY) is the sole authorised operator of gaming machines in Finland.

 

There are approximately 20,000 low-stake / low-win slot machines operating under the RAY monopoly in Finland, with very little incidence of unlicensed machine operation.

 

All the licensed machines are manufactured by RAY with €1 maximum stakes and maximum jackpots of between €50 and €100.

 

Finland is one of the countries in the world that plays most on slot machines, with 18 percent of the adult population saying they had played in the last week.

 

According to research conducted by Finnish slot monopoly RAY between 1994 and 2012, almost 40 percent of people questioned said they had played in the last year. For comparison, using the same research methodology, neighbouring Sweden recorded 14 percent having played in the previous year and just 2 percent having played in the previous week.

 

Slot machine gaming has been rising in popularity in Finland, with Finns spending an average €122 on slot machines in 2011, an increase of €7 from 2010.

 

Remote Gambling

 

Finland was an early adopter of online gambling; Veikkaus was granted a licence under the Lottery Act to operate games on the internet in 1996. Subsequently, Fintoto commenced its totalisator operations on the internet in 2001.

 

Finnish law considers the internet to be another distribution channel, not a separate form of gambling.

 

In Finland, land-based operators are allowed to extend their product offerings online to a “bricks and clicks” model, a licence extension process sometimes described as License PLUS.

 

Coming into effect on October 1, 2010, the Finnish Lotteries Act and Criminal Code tightened the ban on advertising illegal gambling companies and increased the maximum prison sentence for marketing unlicensed operators from six months to two years.

 

Local gambling publications quickly saw advertising revenues from foreign online gaming firms dry up, and the media have become increasingly cautious over running unapproved adverts.

 

Although the regulator has been broadly successful in blocking advertising from foreign gambling companies, they have not chosen to implement IP or payment blocking.

 

RAY moved online at the end of 2010 offering slot and casino games as well as poker throughout Finland. Despite a slow start due to competition from illegal foreign operators, internet gaming has grown into a lucrative product for RAY.

 

In 2013, RAY’s online gambling revenues reached €60m, up 21.5 percent in comparison with the previo us year, representing the company’s strongest growth area. Still, in the first four months of 2014, revenue from online gaming edged up just 0.9 percent to €19.7m, a positive change but decelerating significantly from the growth levels of the previous year.

 

The RAY gaming service (www.ray.fi ) offers more than 150 different games, including casino table games and online poker. Between 2011 and 2012 the group prioritised the cross-selling of Casino Helsinki and www.ray.fi. The www.ray.fi site offers weekly chances to win seats at Casino Helsinki’s tournaments.

 

For Casino Helsinki’s dedicated ray.fi tournament, all 100 participants were exclusively chosen from several online qualification tournaments to participate.

 

Still, efforts to draw poker players away from offshore sites have so far had mixed results.

 

RAY’s online casino games have proved far more popular than its poker network, which cannot compete with the sheer number of players on foreign websites, since it launched at the end of 2010.

 

 

 Following the European Commission’s decision to drop the infringement case against Finland’s gambling laws last year, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Policy said in February 2014 that it would set up a digital monitoring group to analyse ways to keep unlicensed online operators out of the market and prevent operations that violate the Lotteries Act.

 

As part of the government’s commitment to enhance Finnish citizens’ awareness of safe and legal gambling in the country, the group will examine ways to tackle issues related to unlicensed gambling services, including illegal marketing.

 

The group’s remit will not include the recommendation of payment blocking, but alternative means will be assessed in cooperation with Finnish gambling operators and relevant authorities.

 

The Åland Islands, a Swedish-speaking autonomous region of Finland, has licensed Ålands Penningautomatförening (Paf), which is the Ålandic version of RAY and Veikkaus combined, which also offers games in mainland Finland.