Dutch party pushes for sale of Holland Casino

Christian Democratic Appeal wants the government to sell off the state-owned casino operator.

The Netherlands.- The Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) party is calling for the state to sell Holland Casino. The party, which also advocates for a ban on online gambling, argues that the casino operator is not competitive in the current environment. 

MP Inge van Dijk told finance minister Eelco Heinen and tax affairs secretary Folkert Idsinga that “the state must sell off Holland Casino,” comparing the operating model to “mopping the floor while the tap is running”.

State-owned Holland Casino runs fourteen land-based venues throughout the Netherlands – the first being founded in Zandvoort in 1976. It also now runs online gambling following the opening of the regulated online gambling market in October 2021, however it has struggled amid competition from private operators.

Holland Casino’s financial challenges

Profits from Holland Casino go directly to the Dutch treasury but H1 results revealed a loss of €3.5m compared to a profit of over €17m in the same period last year. The state-controlled operator paid an extra €3.7m in gambling tax due to a 1 per cent rate hike at the start of the year, and it’s preparing for more challenges as the new Dutch government plans a further hike in gambling tax from 30.5 to 37.8 per cent. 

Commenting on the first-half figures, Holland Casino director Petra de Ruiter said the operator would be unable to absorb the proposed tax increase and warned that the company would have to launch aggressive campaigns to recruit more customers in order to stay in the black.

De Ruiter said: “Our total tax burden will then be almost 50 per cent. This makes black figures impossible. We will make a significant loss. Unlike supermarkets, we cannot pass on price increases. The only alternative is that we will take very undesirable measures such as aggressive campaigns to recruit new guests, encouraging people to spend much more or by significantly reducing prize money.”

Finland’s Veikkaus is to enter contract negotiations with up to 620 members of staff, warning this could result in more redundancies, as part of its forward planning for the country’s transformation into a multi-licence market.