Former Dutch regulator calls for iGaming rules

The outgoing chairman of the Kansspelautoriteit voiced his frustration over not being able to regulate the online gambling market.

Netherlands.- Former Kansspelautoriteit chairman Jan Suyver has left the gaming regulator in the Netherlands on Monday. However, the outgoing official has voiced his frustration over the country’s inability to regulate the online gaming segment while the rest of Europe is already way beyond that point.

“The Netherlands is almost the last country in Europe that has not regulated the online gambling market,” he told Financieele Dagblad and added: “Everywhere I meet my fellow gambling authorities it is arranged. In Bucharest, in Prague… abroad they do not understand that the law is still not there in the Netherlands.”

According to Suyver, iGaming regulation would turn unregulated offshore online gambling revenue down: “You will maintain that illegal situation [by not regulating],” he said. “You cannot cancel that illegal situation. There are hundreds of sites active – if you tackle one, you immediately have an alternative,” the former Kansspelautoriteit chairman explained.

Mr Suyver also explained that he wasn’t the only frustrated official in the KSA but his whole team also felt discouraged over the lack of regulation: “They have the hope that the law will come. In the meantime they have to be patient,” he asserted.