A rare criminal hit on a gambling influencer
A district court in North Savo, Finland, on June 18 convicted Jouko “Pottukoira” Kärkkäinen, 44, of a gambling offense for marketing casinos other than the state monopoly Veikkaus to Finnish audiences on his website, Instagram and Kick between May 2023 and February 2024. The court imposed 80 day-fines totaling about $2,700 (€2,480), plus a roughly $90 surcharge.
Kärkkäinen denied wrongdoing, arguing his streams were entertainment rather than commercial marketing, were not aimed at Finland, and that he did not control the website carrying the casino links. The court rejected that, pointing to repeated Finnish-language promotions – such as “150 free spins for just €10” – posted beside links to his site, and held that a gambling-marketing conviction does not require proof the promoter was paid or benefited; his purpose to promote the operators was enough.
The case is unusual mainly for its visibility. Finnish influencers have promoted offshore casinos for years, but enforcement has run through administrative channels – including a roughly $27,000 conditional fine the National Police Board imposed on Kärkkäinen in 2024, upheld on appeal, after which he relocated to Estonia to keep working with foreign operators.
The Veikkaus monopoly is being dismantled, with licensing opened in March 2026 and the regulated market going live on July 1, 2027. Nevertheless, marketing non-Veikkaus operators stays illegal until then. The verdict is not final, and Kärkkäinen could appeal by July 20, though he has indicated he will not do so, laughing off the penalty.
The conviction fits a wider European tightening on gambling – and the tension that comes with it. In the Netherlands, an advertising ban has driven the licensed market’s share below half, stoking fears that players drift to unlicensed sites; Lithuania, meanwhile, is advancing the continent’s most comprehensive player-card regime, a mandatory cross-operator system slated for 2029 that the industry warns could push gamblers offshore. The Finnish case sits on the same fault line: the offshore operators Kärkkäinen marketed are exactly the ones these regimes aim to wall off – and the higher the wall, the greater the incentive to go around it.
