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From a Freewebs Dream to a Multimarket Casino Brand – The Story of Winlandia

By Matti Pekkanen, Founder of Winlandia
It all started over 10 years ago, though, in truth, the first sparks of Winlandia go back even further. I got into the affiliate business around 2007. Back then, I was barely 20, with no money, no connections, no formal skills. What I had was curiosity and frustration. There were no proper Finnish-language casino sites online poker content was everywhere, but casino players? We were left in the dark. So I did what any broke, slightly naive guy would do: I built my first affiliate portal on Freewebs. It wasn’t pretty. It didn’t rank. But it was a start.

Over time, I learned SEO, saved up enough to buy my first domain and slowly made the right connections in tech and iGaming. While others chased the online poker boom, I quietly focused on casino traffic. Less noise, more potential.

I guess I was lucky and a bit strategic. I always believed that people would eventually get tired of losing to poker pros, but they’d stick around in casino environments, where the odds are the same for everyone. I even shared that thought with a guy I chatted online: Ory Weihs, founder of XLMedia. At the time, I didn’t fully grasp how big his business already was (or was about to become). But we talked business, life, and trends and I even told him: “Focus on casinos, not just poker.”

Years later, Ory’s company went public. And me? I got my second child in 2012 and made one of the best decisions of my life: I sold my affiliate sites and stepped back to focus on family. Today, many would probably argue that if I had held onto my sites and doubled down on developing them, I could have made a lot more money. And they would be right. But some things in life don’t have a price tag and for me, that time with my family was one of them. It may not have been the most lucrative choice, but it was undoubtedly the most rewarding one.

Our second son was born with a cleft lip and palate, which meant multiple surgeries and uncertainty early in life. That period made me rethink everything. But thanks to steady affiliate income and those rev-share deals I’d worked so hard to build, we were okay. We had space to breathe.

When the time felt right, I returned.

And this time, I came back with a bigger idea — FinlandiaCasino.
I had the domain, the funds, the team, and a strong white-label partner. We were ready to give Finnish players what I had dreamed about back in 2007: a fully Finnish, trustworthy, high-quality casino.

Of course, not everything went as planned.

We tried to launch with a bang big campaigns, TV ads, full speed. Unfortunately, technical issues delayed our go-live date, and ads were already airing. That wasn’t easy. I was frustrated. On the operator side, you’re constantly solving problems you didn’t even know existed.

But slowly, with grit, sisu and the support of a talented team, FinlandiaCasino became one of the most known and trusted online casinos in Finland.
- It wasn’t some overnight success.
- It took every euro I earned from selling my sites.
- It drained nearly 90% of my passive income from old rev-share accounts.

But we made it work. And today, that product has evolved into Winlandia — a modern Nordic brand now live in the UK, Sweden, and Denmark.

We’ve grown from a Finnish dream into a multimarket casino, backed by long-term partnerships, solid affiliate support, and values rooted in trust, sustainability, and fairness.

Looking back, I wouldn’t change the journey, even the missteps played their part. Winlandia was never just a brand: it was the result of years of learning, failing, rebuilding, and believing in a better way to build casinos

-We’re still growing.
-We’re still learning.

And now, for the first time, we’re exhibiting at iGB Live London, meeting the people who helped us get here and those who will help shape where we go next.

See you at Stand A41!