Finnish monopoly operator Veikkaus has reported revenue of €1.10bn (£911.5m/$1.21bn) in its full year 2021 results, marking a 12.7% decrease compared to 2020.
The revenue fall came as the monopoly’s market share fell by 5% to 74%, meaning the unlicensed market made up the other 26%.
Casino games generated €323.4m of the total, down 30.1% from 2020. Slot machines made up €142.9m of this and other casino games brought up the remaining €35.7m.
Lottery games revenue came to €627.6m, a decrease of 5.0%. Weekly lottery games amounted to €383.6m of this and daily lottery games revenue came to €187.6m. Scratchcards added €56.3m.
Betting accumulated €148.9m in revenue, up 8.6%. Betting games, which include multiplayer, live bets and long bets, made up €86.3m of this, while toto games accounted for the remaining €62.5m.
Other business profits drove the revenue up by €3.6m, but lottery tax of €60.3m caused it to decrease. This lottery tax was 60.0% less than in 2020.
Costs for the year amounted to €128.2m, a decline of 24.0% year-on-year. Much of this came from sales, commission and placement fees, which amounted to €83.4m – down 24.3%. Target cooperation costs fell by 8.5% to €11.5m, while lottery costs decreased 12.8% to €9.0m.
The remaining amount came from a number of sources, including authority costs and product advertising.
Employee benefits expense, which comprised of salaries and fees, pension costs and other personnel expenses, totaled €90.6m, a rise of 4.1% year-on-year.
Other operating expenses, including service purchases, depreciation and impairment and others fell by 18.1% to €144.0m.
After considering all costs, the remaining net profit amounted to €680.3m, down by just 0.04% year-on-year.
The decreased revenue came in a year in which Veikkaus increased its focus on responsible gambling.
Yesterday (2 March) Veikkaus released a survey which revealed that problem gambling had fallen to 0.8% in Finland from November 2020 to November 2021. This is compared to 1.8% in the previous year.
In November 2021, Veikkaus released data that showed an “all-time low” in problem gambling following its introduction of loss limits for slot machines.
Finland has had loss limits for online games, including slots, for quite some time but this was extended to physical slot machines in August 2021 as part of easing restrictions put in place by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In December 2021 Finland’s Constitutional Committee stated that there was no justification to protect Veikkaus’ monopoly in relation to proposed amendments to the country’s Lotteries Act.
If passed into law, the bill, which was first filed in September 2021, would see all payments to other operators except Veikkaus blocked.
