Finland's social watchdog to consider gambling when issuing support

Finland’s social watchdog, Kela, has issued updated guidelines on how it will decide who gets social support and what the size of the financial support is in the first place by factoring in a person’s gambling winnings and losses.

Kela adjusts screening process to help people with a gambling problem

Previously, Kela would only consider a person’s gambling winnings and thus reduce the size of the social support it offered people based on one-off winning transactions.

Now, the watchdog wants to take a more comprehensive approach that will allow it to track gambling winnings and losses over a longer period in determining who is eligible for financial support assistance.

The national social insurance institution is also hoping to help steer gamblers away from bad habits that may be leading to financial hardship and help them connect with specialized resources.

This news comes at a time when Finland is shifting towards a licensee-based market model, which will see Veikkaus relinquish its dominance of the market to new companies that meet the regulatory requirements and pay the licensing fees.

Commenting on the changes to the way Kela will issue social assistance, Benefits Manager Marja-Leena Valkonen said this in a translated statement:

"We at Kela do not tell our customers how they should use their social assistance, but naturally we are concerned if people with a low income use their money on gambling. Social assistance is a last-resort form of financial assistance meant to be used for the payment of daily living expenses such as rent and food. We want to help those whose financial problems are made worse by gambling."

Kela makes sure problem gamblers can get the help they need – if they consent

More importantly, Valkonen and Kela wanted to remind people that social assistance is available to people with gambling problems, as, in many instances, gambling problems only come to light when a person faces a crisis.

According to Kela, about 5% of social assistance recipients will use at least a part of these funds to sustain their gambling habit. Kela, though, can help affected people by notifying the services that can offer further assistance. However, Kela cannot do that without an individual’s consent.

Kela hopes that this overhauled set of rules will help the social watchdog to better target people who need assistance, and aid people in helping them overcome gambling-related problems.

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