€471.3m Revenue, 64.5% Digital Share: Veikkaus Reports H1 2026 Results Under CEO Olli Sarekoski

Veikkaus has reported actual sales revenue of 471.3 million euros for the first half of 2026, up from 466.4 million a year earlier, in interim results published on 3 September 2026. The Veikkaus H1 2026 results show operating profit of 227.7 million euros and profit for the financial period of 234.2 million, against 220.6 million and 229.6 million a year earlier. Growth was led almost entirely by digital channels, and by the end of June the number of registered customers stood close to 2.7 million.

Digital growth reshaped Veikkaus revenue

The topline moved only modestly. The mix moved a good deal more. By the close of the half, 64.5% of the Finnish gambling business’s gross gaming revenue came through digital channels, up 3.6 percentage points on the year, with physical points of sale accounting for the remaining 35.5%. That steady drift away from the counter is the pattern running underneath almost every number in this report.

The digital growth split cleanly across the two Finnish business areas:

• Lottery and Land Based Gaming: digital gross gaming revenue up 9.1%
• Betting and iCasino: digital gross gaming revenue up 5.0%

Lottery and Land Based Gaming brought in 317.9 million euros in gross gaming revenue overall, near flat against 317.5 million, but the composition tells the real story. Lottery games grew to 254.5 million from 246.1 million, helped by digital play through the Veikkaus app, the Milli game launched in June 2025, and higher Lotto jackpots than in the comparison period. Slot machines and physical table games moved the other way, falling to 63.4 million from 71.3 million as a smaller retail network left fewer machines in the field.

Betting and iCasino hit a record customer number

Betting and iCasino gross gaming revenue rose to 151.6 million euros from 146.5 million, and the business reached a record number of customers during the period. Veikkaus doubled the release capacity of its in-house game studio, expanded its iCasino selection with new games and suppliers, and kept Live Casino growing as a larger part of the portfolio.

Betting delivered a strong half across both sports betting and Toto games. Fixed-odds betting developed well on the back of a busy sporting calendar that included the Olympic Games, the Ice Hockey World Championship and the start of the FIFA World Cup, while Toto was supported by improvements to the product and offering. As elsewhere, the growth was concentrated in digital, with play at points of sale continuing to slip.

CEO Olli Sarekoski framed the half directly: “Veikkaus’ first half of the year has developed positively and in line with our expectations: we have returned to a growth path,” he said, adding that the online store’s growth in the Finnish businesses “has exceeded the general market development in Finland.”

Finland’s 2027 licence reform explained

The read behind the digital push is straightforward. Finland moves to a partial multi-license system on 1 July 2027, and Veikkaus loses its exclusive right to offer betting and iCasino games. It keeps exclusivity only over lottery games, scratch cards, slot machines and physical table games.

The reform is already well underway. The new Gambling Act was ratified in January 2026, and the provisions covering licence applications came into force on 1 March. In May, Veikkaus took two concrete steps toward the new market:

• Established two separate subsidiaries, one for exclusive operations and one for the competitive licensed market
• Submitted licence applications for both

By the end of June, around 50 other companies had also applied. Every point of digital share Veikkaus builds now is share it will spend the next era defending.

Fennica Gaming grew 80.6% with seven new market launches

The B2B story is moving faster than the domestic one. Fennica Gaming, which runs Veikkaus’ international operations and produces games for the Finnish businesses, grew revenue 80.6% to 10.3 million euros from 5.7 million. During the half it launched in seven new markets: Italy, Canada, two German states, Mexico, the Czech Republic and Iceland.

The company now operates across 21 markets, three continents and three game categories, with iCasino games live in seven markets. For an operator that has only ever served one protected home market, that spread is the clearest sign of where it thinks its future growth sits.

The billion-euro cost behind the profit

The profit comes with a price attached. Veikkaus will pay market-based compensation for its continued exclusive operations, and according to the company a significant part of that falls due on a front-loaded basis during 2026. The total runs to roughly one billion euros across the ten-year licence period.

Set against that, the balance sheet stayed comfortable. Group cash and equivalents stood at 353.9 million euros at the end of the period, with a balance sheet total of 503.3 million.

Turning a head start into a real advantage

The next eighteen months are about conversion. Veikkaus has the head start, the digital momentum and the customer base, and what it has to prove is that incumbency turns into competitiveness once exclusivity on betting and iCasino ends. The signals to track are already visible in this report: the digital share, Fennica Gaming’s market count, and how the front-loaded compensation weighs on the numbers through the rest of 2026.

Source: Veikkaus Group