Veikkaus Oy was the Finnish national betting agency. It was fully owned by the Finnish government and had an exclusive legal betting license on lotteries and sports betting in Finland. Veikkaus was managed by the Finnish Ministry of Education, which shared money earned by Veikkaus with various organizations. In 2010 Veikkaus gave 462.7 million euros for the Ministry of Education to share. The rules of the games and gaming itself are controlled by the Finnish Ministry of Internal Affairs.
On January 1, 2017, Veikkaus merged with RAY and Fintoto. The new company that was founded as a result is also called Veikkaus.
History
Veikkaus organises 20 different games, the most popular being the Finnish national lottery, which generates more than a third of the company's total sales. Other important games are Football pools and Fixed Odds Betting (forms of sports betting), and the Ässä scratch tickets.
The Finnish Ministry of Education is responsible for allocating the profits produced by Veikkaus's activities in a socially optimal way between amateur sports, the arts, science and youth work. These profits exceed a million euros daily, and constitute a significant part of government expenditure