KSA warns that Holland Casino could face sanctions

The Dutch gambling regulator says the chain’s control database is still not up to scratch.

The Netherlands.- The Dutch gambling regulator Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) has warned the state-controlled gambling brand Holland Casino to bring its control database (CDB) in line with legal requirements. It says the operator could be fined or even lose its online gambling licence after the District Court of The Hague told it to respect an order from the regulator.

CBDs, to which the KSA has access, store data on gambling activity. Holland Casino was granted an online gambling licence back in September 2021 ahead of the launch of the Netherlands’ regulated gaming market. The KSA warned at the time that its CDB did not meet legal requirements.

The regulator followed up in December 2021 soon after the market launched and said the CBD was still showing incorrect data. Holland Casino said the issued had been resolved, but in February of 2022, the KSA said new problems had been detected. Holland Casino worked with partners to resolve the issues, but when the KSA conducted testing in September 2022 it found issues that had not been fixed.

Subsequent testing scheduled for November and December of last year didn’t go ahead because the KSA said that Holland Casino had not yet resolved previous problems. After granting the operator a verification period in January, it found errors in Holland Casino’s implementation of its data model and the quality of player data. More testing took place in May this year, but again the KSA was unsatisfied. In June, it gave Holland Casino six weeks to sort things out.

Holland Casino objected to that and applied for a provisional injunction, suspending the order. But the District Court of The Hague has now rejected that application, meaning that the six-week window now starts running again. The KSA says Holland Casino must fix its CBD within this time frame or face a possible fine or licence revocation. Holland Casino argued that its CBD meets requirements.

Earlier this month, the KSA said it had warned three licensed gambling operators for breaching the Netherlands’ new ban on untargeted advertising. The Netherlands introduced a ban on July 1, covering all television, radio and out-of-home ads. Gambling adverts are still allowed online and in on-demand television if it can be proved that they are prevented from reaching people aged under 24.