Head of Finland's RAY Organization Claims They Can Handle Online Poker

Finland's culture and sport minister Stefan Wallin’s, remarks during the earlier part of this week in which he said that the Finish government should consider maintaining an online poker service so as to bring gamblers to the site and avoid their playing on foreign poker sites have attracted a mixed response.

Kari Paaso, who fills Wallin's role for the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, was won't to disregard this suggestion when he heard it and said last Tuesday that the introduction of local operated online games would only add to the addiction of those playing online already. But he also noted that they would keep and eye on things.

At the same time, Matti Hokkanen who serves as the communications director for RAY said that the Finish government, sees it as an important goal to maintain exclusive rights to this activity in Finland. He says that his department views the start of Internet casino activities within the present unregulated and fast-paced environment, would probably result in being to some degree a threat vis a vis RAY’s current monopoly.

As things stand today, RAY holds exclusive rights with regard to slot machine and casino operations in Finland.

Hokkanen did however, point out that RAY does have the technical capability to carry out online poker. He did however, that there would be certain complications involved in actually setting up such an operation since it would most assuredly intensify the gambling problems of some individuals.

If the restrictions set down by a Finnish operator exceeded those of a foreign operator the customer would simply switch to an overseas site, according to Hokkanen.

Veikkaus Oy also has the capacity and technical experts to establish online poker sites according to Ilkka Juva, its communications director who adds that technically such an idea is far from impossible if the Finish government and the gaming license holders were to come to an agreement. He says that his organization holds a great deal of technical and business experience in this area.

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