Veikkaus' Board of Directors made decisions in their early September meeting regarding measures to develop the company.
Veikkaus' strategy will be clarified, and the CSR program will be updated along with the marketing guidelines. The company's total investments in marketing will also be reduced.
- For example, in the future, comprehensive, permanent gaming bans in Betting Games will be offered as an option, says President and CEO Olli Sarekoski .
Game object information regarding Betting 'physical slot machines will be Discontinued entirely. Likewise, any game object information regarding games at high frequency in the digital channel will be discontinued elsewhere than in the digital environment.
- The amount of marketing at Veikkaus will be reduced by a third as compared to the previous three operators (Veikkaus, Finland's Slot Machine Association, and Fintoto), says Sarekoski.
Veikkaus has currently ca. 18,500 decentralized slot machines all over the country. Their number will be reduced and we will introduce compulsory identification earlier than planned. Compulsory identification will be introduced step by step during the period between 1 October 2020 and 1 January 2022. The number of decentralized slot machines will be cut down by 3,500.
The Board of Directors has also decided to propose that, in conjunction with the revision of the Lotteries Act, all gaming should be made subject to compulsory identification, with the exception of scratchcards and casinos.
- This will enable us to build a comprehensive Ecosystem of secure gaming and provide us with better opportunities to prevent money laundering, says Sarekoski.
The use of customer data will also be enabled in future management models of responsible gaming.
Veikkaus' Board of Directors decided to set up an Ethical Council for Veikkaus. In their meeting of early September, the Board of Directors established the Council's duties.
If they wish, the Council may propose concrete solutions, issue statements, and present ethical arguments regarding practical issues having to do with gaming and with public debate related to gaming.
The Council will not offer solutions to individual questions or complaints by third parties. The chairman shall present a report on the Council's operations from the previous year to the Board of Directors.
The endeavor to complement The performance management rewarding system, which we have announced earlier, also received new guidelines for 2019. The performance-based bonus model will be made subject to a threshold value indicator is not made in a way that increases gambling problems and that company succeeds in its channeling mission.