Bingoal fined for Dutch self-exclusion failings

The online gaming operator failed to consult the self-exclusion system when signing up players.

The Netherlands.- The online gaming operator Bingoal has been fined €350,000 by the Dutch gambling regulator Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) for breaching self-exclusion rules. It failed to check the Netherlands’ Cruks system when signing up new players.

Consulting Cruks has been mandatory since the launch of the regulated online gambling market in the Netherlands in October 2021, although it has suffered some outages. Bingoal’s failure occurred over three days in June 2022 because its public key infrastructure (PKI) certificate, which operators need to consult the database, had expired.

The operator allowed players to register despite not being able to perform cross-checks to ensure that they had not excluded from gambling. The situation lasted three days until it obtained a new PKI certificate and was able to access Cruks again.

The KSA said that Bingoal should have declined to register new players until it was able to access Cruks. It said: “Bingoal should not have done that; the law says that a player may only gain access to a high-risk game of chance after a game provider has determined that the player in question is not registered in Cruks.

“Cruks is an important tool to combat gambling addiction and to protect players against the undesirable effects of gambling.”

Bingoal has appealed against the ruling.

See also: The Netherlands investigates operators for unpaid taxes pre-regulation