meta_id 3080178

On April 21, 2026, Finland's Ministry of the Interior initiated a legislative project to prepare amendments to the Lottery Act (Arpajaislaki) and Gambling Act (Rahapelilaki) to enable the gifting of scratch cards (raaputusarvat). The project will conclude on December 31, 2026. Scratch cards came under mandatory identification requirements at the beginning of 2024, which prevented prize redemption by anyone other than the card purchaser and eliminated the possibility of purchasing scratch cards as gifts. The Ministry of the Interior's legislative initiative seeks to modify existing legislation to permit gift-giving while maintaining consumer protections. Under the proposed framework, the person purchasing the scratch card must remain a registered customer of Veikkaus Oy and must purchase the card while authenticated. However, prize redemption could be completed by a person other than the purchaser without requiring that person to be registered. Both card purchase and prize redemption would continue to require full legal age to prevent minors from gambling. The legislative approach and implementation details will be evaluated and developed throughout the project. A government proposal is expected to be submitted to parliament during the autumn 2026 session. The Ministry of the Interior previously completed a preliminary investigation in January 2026, which examined current legislation, scratch card gambling practices, and proposed alternative legislative models with impact assessments. **References:** Ministry of the Interior (Finland): https://intermin.fi/en