Hippos ATG Oy to bring ATG brand to Finland
The move comes as the nation gears up for demonopolisation.
Key points:
– Hippos ATG Oy will bring the ATG brand to Finland following market demonopolisation
– It will look and run much the same as the ATG app in other nations
Hippos ATG Oy will use the ATG brand in the Finnish market from 2027, pending the demonopolisation of the market.
The brand will launch the ATG.fi site upon receiving a commercial licence, and will offer a range of games via the ATG gaming app framework.
Alongside the launch, ATG Talent will be introduced to strengthen Finnish horse trotting. Hippos ATG is owned by the Finnish Hippos Association and the Swedish ATG; the former of which is Finland’s national organisation for equine sports and education.
On the upcoming launch, Hippos ATG Oy CEO Mikael Bäcke said: “ATG is a strong, trusted, quality brand in Sweden and already familiar to many Finnish gamblers. That is something we want to build on as we enter the new Finnish gambling market in 2027.
“We will be a gaming company that benefits both customers and Finnish horseracing. As much as 60% of our surplus – from betting on horses, sports and casino – will go directly back to harness racing in Finland.”
Good to know: In June, ATG accused Veikkaus, the current monopoly operator, of anti-competitive practices, including the cancelled horseracing partnership between the two
Hippos ATG Oy has also recently hired two new members to its C-suite team as it works towards its post-monopoly launch: Joonas Saha as Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) and Antti Koivula as Chief Compliance Officer.
Gambling Insider spoke exclusively to Koivula not long after the demonopolisation efforts were announced, following a 2023 investigation. Here, Koivula gave context to the move and predictions on what was to come. When asked what he expects the new market to look like, he said:
“Finland is not going to copy-paste the Swedish system. That’s really not the situation at all. That being said, Finland has closely benchmarked the Swedish system along with some other foreign gambling systems, for example, the Danish and Dutch systems… On the other hand, several negative aspects have also been identified from the benchmark system and those will not be included in the Finnish system.”
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