This is how Finnish online casinos differ from African ones

The Finnish gambling market is currently undergoing significant changes as the country is planning its transition to an open licensing system. Despite this, Finnish online casinos are already under strict regulation, and playing at these casinos is generally safe.

At the same time, online casino gaming is also growing in popularity in Africa. In Africa, the regulation of online casinos varies significantly between countries: it can be either very strict or almost non-existent.

There are differences between Northern Europe and Africa not only in terms of safety and regulation but also in game selection, deposit methods, and responsible gambling practices.

Regulation of online casinos in Finland is in an interesting state: casino regulation is strict and closely monitored, even though Finland does not yet have an open licensing system. For now, only the state-owned company Veikkaus is officially allowed to offer casino games within Finland’s borders.

Despite this, there are several hundred online casinos aimed at Finnish players. These casinos primarily operate from Malta, Estonia, and Curacao under licenses granted by these countries’ gambling authorities. Kaikkinettikasinot.fi maintains a list of all available Finnish online casinos with different licenses.

For example, Finnish online casinos operating with an Estonian license are closely monitored. The casino must meet a long list of requirements to obtain the license in the first place.

Thereafter, the operation must continuously meet certain criteria, or the license can be revoked. There are particularly stringent requirements in the areas of responsible gambling and data processing.

The situation is quite different from that of African online casinos, where regulation varies by country. The oversight of Finnish online casinos is generally more consistent, and players can feel safe if the casino has an official license.

The licensing requirements do not only apply to casino operators; game providers must also obtain their own licenses. For this reason, not all game providers choose to operate in all market areas, and African online casinos may find it difficult to include all game studios in their selections.

The situation is entirely different for European online casinos. Practically all major gambling providers want to enter the European market, and Finnish online casinos, in particular, are an important market area for many game developers.

Finnish online casinos invariably feature all the major international studios, such as NetEnt, Play’n Go, Evolution, Pragmatic Play, and Microgaming. The most diverse Finnish online casinos can have over a hundred game providers and several thousand games in total.

At the same time, African online casinos often have a significantly smaller number of game providers, and the total number of games may only be a few hundred. However, this situation is expected to change soon, as more and more major game providers are becoming interested in expanding their operations to the African market.

One of the key differences between Finnish and African online casinos relates to the available deposit methods.

In recent years, playing using online banking credentials has become a massive trend at Finnish online casinos. In this method, players do not need to register an account at the casino; instead, they can make a deposit directly from their bank account.

Popular payment options for playing with online banking credentials include Trustly, Brite, and Zimpler. All of them originate from Sweden.

Other popular payment methods at Finnish online casinos include traditional payment cards like Visa and Mastercard. E-wallets, such as Skrill and Neteller, have also remained among the most popular casino payment methods.

At African online casinos, direct bank transfers are practically not available at all. African online casinos rely more on local deposit methods, such as mobile payments. Unlike Finns, not all Africans have access to a traditional bank account, which leads to noticeable differences in the available payment methods.

Responsible gambling is perhaps the biggest single difference between Finnish and African online casinos. At African online casinos, responsible gambling can be quite poorly managed, whereas, at Finnish online casinos, this is one of the most important themes.

Without exception, all Finnish online casinos offer various responsible gambling tools to help players keep their gambling under control. These include loss limits, deposit limits, and session time limits.

Additionally, Finnish casinos allow players to set up self-exclusion temporarily or permanently if they want to prevent themselves from playing at the casino. The exclusion can also be set up for multiple online casinos under the same operator at once.

In addition to responsible gambling tools, Finnish online casinos usually provide information about organisations that offer help with gambling problems if needed. Many Finnish casinos also allow players to conduct self-assessments to check the current state of their gambling habits.

At African online casinos, responsible gambling is taken much more lightly. Keeping gambling responsible is mainly left to the players’ own responsibility.

In Finland, online casino market is undergoing a major change as the country transitions from a state-owned monopoly system to an open licensing system. This will allow for even stricter regulation of online casino operations in Finland. A central theme of the new system is responsible gambling.

In Africa, the development of the online casino market is also being shaped by the desire of major game providers to enter the market. The more the market attracts large, well-known operators, the more official the continent’s online casino market becomes in general.