Dutch government claims success for unlicensed gambling clampdown

A report presented to the Dutch parliament shows a steep fall in players accessing unlicensed gambling sites since the launch of the regulated market.

The Netherlands. The minister for legal protection Sander Dekker has presented a report that claims significant success for the Netherland’s action against unlicensed online gambling since the country’s newly regulated igaming market launched at the start of October.

The report, which Dekker has presented to the Dutch parliament, shows that traffic to unlicensed gambling sites fell dramatically after the government adopted a stricter posture, ordering all unlicensed gambling operators to stop passively accepting bets from Dutch customers.

The Dutch regulator De Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) had previously targeted action against only operators who were found to be actively targeting Dutch players, for example by offering material in the Dutch language.

That changed with the launch of the regulated market, with the KSA now expecting unlicensed operators to actively block Dutch players.

Several major operators immediately did just that, with Entain, 888, Betsson, Casumo,  Kindred Group and Leo Vegas all blocking Dutch players from the start of October. The KSA has said that it has a list of 25 sites it is monitoring for compliance with the new norms.

The report analyses traffic to the Netherland’s 10 regulated licensees (an 11th operator, JVH Gaming’s JOI Gaming, was granted a licence last month) along with unlicensed sites that began blocking Dutch customers and sites that failed to block access.

It shows that from October 1 traffic to the sites that began blocking Dutch customers fell dramatically, although it didn’t completely dry up. It concluded that there was no sign of customers from these sites moving to other unlicensed operators as a result.

Moreover, the sites that did not take action to block Dutch players also saw traffic fall a little. On the contrary, the ten regulated operators saw their traffic soar.

The report says that as of November 1, the KSA had received 33 licence applications and that several were still pending.

It also reports that as of the same date, 3,500 people had registered for the Netherlands’ gaming self-exclusion system Centraal Register Uitsluiting Kansspelen (Cruks) and 288 calls had been received by the problem gambling support service Loket Kanspel.