“ For me, this industry is part of the same entertainment experience and entertainment wallet [ as TV, music and streaming services ].”
Nordlund’ s entrance to the business initiated a much broader overhaul of both the iGaming arm’ s operations and tech and product offering. Andreas Reimblad, Veikkaus’ VP of sports betting, joined from Kindred in July 2024 and was tasked with building an updated betting product, sitting on the OpenBet platform.
OpenBet won a tender process initiated by Veikkaus in September 2023 to source a new platform and managed trading services provider. Prior to this, Veikkaus had used SBTech’ s betting technology but after it was acquired by DraftKings in 2020, the operator said it would wind down its B2B operations in March 2021.
“ Our current supplier DraftKings announced they were not continuing with their B2B element. The development of the product has been far from ideal, when we’ ve seen other operators being very quick in developing their product and platforms,” Reimblad says.
“ We recognise we wouldn’ t have succeeded if we’ d remained the same. We have had to make tangible changes to provide a better experience for the end consumer, because we’ re not competing for the international operators’ [ acknowledgement ], we’ re competing for the customers.”
Alongside a new betting platform, the operator has opted to integrate new
“ Everyone is waiting for Veikkaus to fail. The competition will be fierce when the market opens so we must be very competitive”
Jarkko Nordlund, Veikkaus
PAM and CRM platforms, as well as new apps and website frontends, which will launch in the coming weeks. The scope of the product refresh is massive. And Nordlund says it is his personal mission to ensure Veikkaus succeeds in the open market.
“ Everyone is waiting for Veikkaus to fail,” he carries on.“ The competition will be fierce when the market opens so we must be very competitive. Our aim is to challenge the mentality of our current position, so we need to secure market leadership.”
‘ WE ARE THE MARKET’ FOR LOCAL SPORTS
On the sports side, Reimblad insists there is much more than just a platform change powering Veikkaus’ sportsbook transformation. For a number of years the operator has had an in-house trading team to price local sports like ice hockey, floorball and Finland’ s answers to baseball, pesäpallo.
Properly integrating and utilising this team is a core goal for Reimblad.“ A
iGB L! VE 2025 • ISSUE 138 • 31