Dutch online gaming market may be smaller than expected
KSA chair René Jansen has said initial estimates on the size of the Dutch online gaming market appear to have been exaggerated.
The Netherlands.- The Dutch gambling regulator de Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) has published its annual report, revealing numbers from the initial months of activity of the country’s newly regulated online gaming market.
The KSA reported that in the five months between the launch of licensed online gaming on October 2 and the start of March, 634,000 online gaming accounts were created. However, the regulator said the number of players was likely to be “considerably lower” than that because it has no data on how many players have opened accounts with more than one operator.
Jansen said: “This is an important insight, because earlier estimates have been made of approximately one million Dutch people who – occasionally or more often – participate in games of chance on the internet. There is even a recent survey that came in at 1.8 million.
“Those estimates therefore seem exaggerated, particularly because a number of large providers without a licence no longer offer their services in the Netherlands from October 1.”
That said, Jansen has previously said that more igaming licences would be on the way and that the market would probably not reach its final form until April. Several major operators which began blocking Dutch players when the new regulated market launched are expected to be applying for licences now the cooling-off period for gaming operators previously active on the unregulated market has ended.
Jansen claimed that the crackdown on unlicensed operators targeting the Netherlands had been successful in reducing the illegal offer. He also said it appears that more customers were now gambling for longer.
He said: “The addendum [to the annual report] includes a graph which clearly shows that the legal offer has largely suppressed the illegal offer since 1 October 2021. That was exactly the intention of the Act: people who want to gamble online should be able to do so in a safe, regulated environment.”
“At the same time, the graph shows that on balance since October 1, the total number of hours that consumers spend on gambling sites has been greater than before October 1. An explanation could be that the legalisation of online games of chance drew consumers’ attention to its existence.
“After all, in the run-up to legalisation there was a lot of media attention for online games of chance. And of course there has been a lot of advertising since October 1.”
Meanwhile, the Dutch minister for legal protection has promised new rules for gambling ads setting “sharp, clear standards” as controversy continues over the quantity of ads since the launch of regulated online gambling in October.
In an interview with the Dutch news site FD.nl, Franc Weerwind said there was evidence of gambling operators “stretching the boundaries” of the current rules.
