Illegal gambling in the Netherlands: Blue High House hit with hefty fine
This time the gambling operator has been ordered to pay €1.1m.
The Netherlands.- The Dutch gambling regulator Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) has issued another fine for illegal gambling against Blue High House. This time, it’s ordered the operator to pay €1.1m after it continued to offer online gambling in the Netherlands without a local licence despite a previous penalty fee of €129,000 in June.
The KSA said it took the decision to impose a new penalty on November 5 in relation to the website Betonline.ag. The regulator first investigated the site in December 2021 and followed up with inspections in January and March of 2022 and 2023. Each time, it found that players in the Netherlands could enter the website, open an account, deposit money and gamble.
The regulator observed no technical measures in place to prevent this. It also said that the particular games being offered on the site are not permitted in the Netherlands even for licensed operators. An initial cease-and-desist order issued in September 2023 went unheeded. The KSA has now given the operator six weeks to pay the new fine before interest is applied.
It said that the amount of the fine is double that which would normally apply but that the nature of case merited more severe action. The total demanded comprises a €600,000 fine for operating without a Dutch online gambling licence, €150,000 for offering illegal games of chance and €75,000 each for unauthorised payment methods, an autoplay feature, no play limits, a lack of age verification and “special circumstances”, which were not expanded on.
The KSA said that Betonline.ag has now ceased offering gambling in the Netherlands and that it would continue to monitor the website. It said that if the site resumes activity or if the operator moves to other channels, more action could be taken.
KSA chairman Michel Groothuizen said: “The Netherlands has a legal gambling market to ensure that people who want to gamble can do so safely. With illegal providers, we often see that risky gaming behaviour is not identified in any way.
“For example, players can create an account on this website without having to verify their age, which means that minors can play. We also saw things like autoplay and turbo play, which can encourage excessive gaming, and there were no gaming limits. the KSA takes tough action against these types of illegal websites.”
Other recent action by the KSA includes a warning over unlicensed gambling issued to Alimaniere Sociedad de Responsabilidad, which it said was allowing Dutch customers to gamble through several unlicensed domains.
Meanwhile, the Dutch government’s review of the country’s Remote Gambling Act has concluded that responsible gambling measures are insufficient. It said that the current regulations had failed to create a safe and sustainable market and that players were not being sufficiently protected from harm.
The three-year review was mandated as part of the Remote Gambling Act, which paved the way for the launch of regulated online gambling in the Netherlands in October 2021. The review notes that several measures have been taken since the launch of the market, including the introduction of a ban on untargeted gambling advertising from July 1 2023, but it said that these measures had been introduced too late.
