Participating on Lottery in Finland as Foreigner??

explorer1 · Post by **explorer1** » Fri Feb 14, 2014 3:41 pm

I came to know that lottery in Finland is limited only for Finns. Is it true? I myself being as foreigner bought several times lottery ( scratch and see ), but never won anything. The seller never asked for Finnish Citizenship. However, if someone won big money, they ask Finnish Citizenship, as I heard, for getting that money in the bank account. Do you have any ideas about it?

Thanks

**Sponsor:**

Upphew · Post by **Upphew** » Fri Feb 14, 2014 3:56 pm

explorer1 wrote:I came to know that lottery in Finland is limited only for Finns. Is it true? I myself being as foreigner bought several times lottery ( scratch and see ), but never won anything. The seller never asked for Finnish Citizenship. However, if someone won big money, they ask Finnish Citizenship, as I heard, for getting that money in the bank account. Do you have any ideas about it?

Thanks

https://www.veikkaus.fi/fi/ajankohtaist ... ahansiirto

riku2 · Post by **riku2** » Fri Feb 14, 2014 4:04 pm

i think it is more a case of paying tax on the winnings, since lotteries are normally franchised by governments on the basis that the winnings are tax free to those tax resident (eg UK govt setup the UK lottery, with provision in UK tax law that winnings from the UK lottery are tax free). The tax law will mention specific lotteries which have tax free status.

If you are tax resident somewhere else then the winnings would not be tax free, they would be classed as income. So someone paying finnish tax can buy a UK lottery ticket, but will pay finnish tax if they win. Someone from UK buying a finnish lottery ticket would pay UK tax on the winnings.

As the finnish government extends the franchsed lotteries (eg they allowed euro-millions recently or some such shared lottery) then they extend the tax laws accordingly. I think in reality in finland that when they say 5m euro jackpot, they actually pay you more and tax is then deducted from it so the after tax amount is 5m.

I doubt citizenship has anything to do with it, it's your tax status that is relevant.

The link posted above is for web based playing I think, not just walking into a shop and buying a ticket.

I think lotteries are actually a great idea. Gullible simpletons can buy lottery tickets and so money goes to "good causes" thus saving us more sensible tax payers from higher tax bills since the "good causes" would otherwise need public funding. "tax on the gullible" is how I think of lotteries.

Pursuivant · Post by **Pursuivant** » Fri Feb 14, 2014 7:48 pm

Well you can't participate in UK lottery unless you're resident in UK and in the country...

Remember, to play National Lottery games online you must be a UK or Isle of Man resident. You must also be physically located in the UK or Isle of Man when buying a ticket or setting up or amending a Direct Debit account, including changing your numbers and payment details.

Don't know if they then pay winnings if you bought a ticket at a kiosk..

riku2 · Post by **riku2** » Fri Feb 14, 2014 8:38 pm

Your quote itself says "online". It does not apply to buying tickets in person anyone can buy UK lottery tickets regardless of where you live/tax residency.

Pursuivant wrote:
Remember, to play National Lottery games online you must be a UK or Isle of Man resident. You must also be physically located in the UK or Isle of Man when buying a ticket or setting up or amending a Direct Debit account, including changing your numbers and payment details.

explorer1 · Post by **explorer1** » Sat Feb 15, 2014 3:19 pm

What specific rules are there in Finland ? Any ideas?

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Sat Feb 15, 2014 7:18 pm

The rules must be on the veikkaus page. I don't think there is much on this kind of rules except you're supposed to be 18 or older and you can't buy a ticket on credit. Taxation rules of one's non-EU home country aren't really their concern.

dave071061 · Post by **dave071061** » Sat Feb 15, 2014 10:18 pm

I was quite interested in this discussion,
Haven´t been able to find anything about this on Veikkaus´s pages, But for online playing of games both on Veikkaus and RAY sites you have to be a Finland resident, this is because they are both monopolies and as such are not allowed to sell their products to non residence, but not sure how Veikkaus could enforce these rules on over the counter sales.

riku2 · Post by **riku2** » Sun Feb 16, 2014 8:32 am

dave071061 wrote:for online playing of games both on Veikkaus and RAY sites you have to be a Finland resident, this is because they are both monopolies and as such are not allowed to sell their products to non residence, but not sure how Veikkaus could enforce these rules on over the counter sales.

The block on online sales is also an action by the finnish government to defend the finnish market from other online gambling services, since gambling as a whole is subject to monopolistic rules in finland. If they allowed Veikkaus to operate over the web to non finnish residents then foreign lottery operators might say they want to offer online services to finnish residents (people might be happy to pay 40% tax on the winnings since the winnings might be 10x that from the finnish lottery - sense goes out of the window when people play lotteries). If challenged in court the finnish government has to be seen to apply the same rules to veikkaus (no online sales outside its borders) as it would like applied to those trying to get access to the finnish market.

If you search the internet for lotteries in the USA you will see they have a similar issue. They block online sales for fear of people buying out of state, but no problem with driving over the border and buying a ticket.

gfunho · Post by **gfunho** » Sun Feb 16, 2014 1:40 pm

Being of EU origin and living in a EU country, it is perfectly fine to participate in a lottery organized by an official organization. Taxes are subject of the particular country that you are living in.

I don't know for outside EU countries.

There is some information (not complete) in the Vero webpage.

Tullynessle Turnip · Post by **Tullynessle Turnip** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 1:32 pm

Veikkaus/Lotto's motto is: SUOMALAINEN AINA VOITTAA! so, you see, foreigners have NO chance!

Oho · Post by **Oho** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 2:21 pm

Well the limitations on playing Finnish lottery are not imposed by the state let alone Veikkaus, they are imposed by the EU in exchange for the state operated monopoly. That is if the state of Finland and Veikkaus do not welcome competition they are not welcome to compete in any other market.

Anyone can buy lottery tickets at outlets and is eligible to win, however if he or she is not resident in Finland they will be responsible for taxes to their respective country of residence.

When did this creep back in, I am quite sure I edited it out at one point when I realized I was probably wrong and Riku had made the very point I was after much more accurately.

explorer1 · Post by **explorer1** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 10:19 pm

Tullynessle Turnip wrote:Veikkaus/Lotto's motto is: SUOMALAINEN AINA VOITTAA! so, you see, foreigners have NO chance!

If this is like that- why are they selling lotto to everyone? They never asked ID or Passport. This seems cheating and making fool for foreigners.

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Wed Feb 19, 2014 5:15 am

explorer1 wrote:
Tullynessle Turnip wrote:Veikkaus/Lotto's motto is: SUOMALAINEN AINA VOITTAA! so, you see, foreigners have NO chance!
If this is like that- why are they selling lotto to everyone? They never asked ID or Passport. This seems cheating and making fool for foreigners.

That was a joke (and reference to advertisement slogan on how the profits generated should go to charitable causes)

riku2 · Post by **riku2** » Wed Feb 19, 2014 9:33 am

Oho wrote:Well the limitations on playing Finnish lottery are not imposed by the state let alone Veikkaus, they are imposed by the EU in exchange for the state operated monopoly

The EU is not imposing anything. The EU wants a single market which means that people in any EU country should be able to use online gambling services from any other EU country. However they do allow an exception to the free access to gambling services ....

EU law permits Member States to restrict the offering of gambling services in the public interest, for example to prevent gambling addiction or organised crime, such restrictions must be coherent with the Member State's own behaviour in offering the very same services.

The Finnish government wants to defend the monopoly of companies like Veikkaus, since if Finns gambled their money on foreign lotteries (and they probably would since the jackpots are 10x what is offered in Finland) then the revenues from Veikkaus and the like would drop and the "good causes" would suffer.. so forcing the government having to fund those good causes rather than the gambling monopolies.

The finnish government have defended their right to have gambling monopolies based on "restrictions coherent with the member state's own behaviour". So by restricting finnish gambling monopolies to only those people actually in Finland, the government can likewise prohibit finns from using online services from outside Finland. If the finish government did not limit Veikkaus (and similar) to only those people in finland then there would be a court case and Finland would lose and have to let Finns use online gambling services from other countries.

What the EU has to say about this : http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/gam ... dex_en.htm

online gambling in the internal market: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-12-798_en.htm

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