Pensioners seem much the same down under as here. Things are exacerbated by the state gambling monopoly in Finland. It would be helpful if the slot machines were quarantined to dedicated locales instead of being allowed to litter every public space. But the discourse that has prevailed until recently is that what Veikkaus does is good because it's for the common good - including providing jobs for a few washed out politicians. :)
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In AUS they are pubs and clubs only. I always found it horrid that in Finalnd where there are 130,000 problem gamblers, they were allowing 15 year old's who didn't even have the right to work to play them at the corner stores and service stations.
If it is so good for the people, why not open it up to competition_
Yes, it's terrible.
It's not that gambling is considered any good. Most people consider it a vice pure and simple. It's that monopolizing it is considered good because at least then some of the profits can be used for the common good. Recently, that has been questioned because there has been a tendency for such publicly owned companies to be run like any profit-seeking enterprises which in this case means marketing vice as well as in the case of Alko. Because politicians are ultimately in control of gambling and the retail market of strong alcoholic drinks, it will be much harder to do anything about these problems because the political class has created a number of of cushy jobs in these corporations for themselves.
One of the notable exceptions is Osmo Soininvaara, a veteran of the Green Party who recently wrote a pretty good analysis of the situation in his blog.
I think the public understanding of the vice extends to the activity itself, not the economy that surrounds it. Do you remember the percentage used for the common good?
Their turnover was about three billion euros and their profits were about one billion euro last year. Nearly all of the profits go to the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. Some is given to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.
Two billion euros are spent on running the business. The number of employees is nearly 2000.
https://cms.veikkaus.fi/site/binaries/content/assets/dokumentit/vuosikertomus/2019/veikkaus_osavuosikatsaus_q2_2019.pdf
Sounds scammy :D
It would be much more straightforward and less tainted with perverse incentives to straight up tax the money spent by the ministries. When you set up an organization like this, it tries to expand like they all do. What Veikkaus does is try and sell people gambling products. Now government funding is partially dependent on the success of that despite it causing a lot of problems. A number of washout politicians get cushy jobs at the board and management of Veikkaus.
You can regulate private gambling companies just as well like they do in Australia.