The Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority (FICORA) on Tuesday ordered the Finnish Broadcasting Company (Yle) to stop broadcasting lottery prize drawings.
For 42 years, Yle has been broadcasting the selection of winning numbers by the state-owned betting agency Veikkaus.
Now FICORA says the public broadcaster must halt the practice by the end of September. This covers drawings for Veikkaus’s own Lotto as well as two transnational lotteries: Viking Lotto, which involves eight Nordic and Baltic states, and Eurojackpot, which spans 14 countries. This weekly drawing for the latter is done every Friday evening in Helsinki.
"This illegal act has been carried out for decades"
FICORA says that Yle has been violating the legislation that governs it, which bans the production of sponsored programmes. Veikkaus has paid Yle for the production of some 700 prize shows annually.
The gaming agency says it pays Yle some three million euros a year for the service.
Yle management has expressed surprise at the ruling but says it will adapt to the change as ordered. It remains unclear which of the two main commercial TV channels will take over the broadcasts.
"This illegal act has been carried out for decades, every Saturday evening before the whole nation, with two police officers present every time," notes Yle communications director Reija Hyvärinen.