Finnish Slot Machine Association RAY wants to attract customers from Russia

“Previously, the government had given us the right to run one casino in Finland in the Helsinki area. Now we were granted the possibility to launch a second casino. According to the government, it has to be somewhere in Eastern Finland”, explains Janne Peräkylä, the Director of Gaming Operations at Finland's Slot Machine Association (RAY).

According to Peräkylä, establishing a casino near the eastern border is particularly enticing. “Business there is profitable, for tourism and related livelihoods are on the up in the region. The visitor figures are skyrocketing. Our aim is to attract customers from Russia in particular.”

RAY has received a couple of dozen project proposals, mostly from Eastern Finland. The interested parties have included, for example, the Holiday Club Saimaa at Rauha in Lappeenranta, the Spa Hotel Rantasipi Imatran Valtionhotelli in Imatra, as well as the city authorities of Hamina, Kotka, Lappeenranta, Imatra, Kuopio, Joensuu, Kouvola, and Lahti.

For now, Peräkylä only knows that the new casino will be built somewhere near the eastern border in the southeastern corner of the country. “We’re not planning to erect any new buildings. The idea is to rent the necessary premises. We will utilise the space of some existing property.”

The location will be decided by the Board of RAY at the end of August. Peräkylä reckons that the new casino will celebrate its opening day sometime in 2014-2015.

The setting up of a new casino was made possible a year ago, when Finland’s gambling legislation was amended. The government changed the boundary conditions related to RAY’s activities and issued a permit to build another casino in the country.

RAY has a monopoly on casino gambling in Finland. It currently operates Casino Helsinki on Mikonkatu in the capital. The casino opened here in 2004, after moving from an earlier site, where it first started in 1991. RAY is also responsible for slot machines and online gambling. Rather like the lottery agency Veikkaus, the company's profits are disbursed to good causes, including health and social welfare organisations.

The hard times in the real economy are rapidly reflected in the casino and gaming business. The euro crisis has hit heavily on casino business in southern Europe in particular, says Janne Peräkylä from RAY.

Finland has nevertheless managed to avoid the worst of this slide. Online gaming poses a threat and challenge to the jealously-guarded domestic monopolies of RAY and Veikkaus, and RAY plans to meet the challenges by launching mobile platform versions of the familiar casino games towards the end of this year.