Online gambling: Winbet warned to cease targetting players in the Netherlands

The Dutch gambling regulator has issued a new warning.

The Netherlands.- The Dutch gambling regulator KSA has warned the operator Winbet to stop accepting players from the country. It warned that it will begin issuing weekly fines up to a total of €840,000 if it fails to do so.

The KSA said Winbet was offering online gambling to Dutch players without a local licence through four websites: Galaxyspins.com, Winnercasino1.bet, Superb1.bet and Doctorspins.com. The regulators said that its own investigators were able to access the site, create accounts, make deposits and play, finding no technical blocks in place to prevent them from doing so.

The KSA’s penalty payment order would impose weekly fines of €280,000 up to the maximum of €840,000. The regulator said: “The Netherlands has a regulated gambling market to better protect players. We therefore take tough action against illegal offerings. With a penalty order, illegal offerings are often quickly stopped. Providers can also be fined for the period in which the illegal offering was available.”

The action follows a similar measure taken against BlokDance. Meanwhile, licensed gambling operators in the Netherlands are concerned that the KSA’s enforcement efforts are not effective enough. The Dutch online gambling trade associations NOGA and VNLOK have urged the KSA to step up its monitoring of the black market after the publication of its latest report. They suggest that there has been an increase in consumer spending on the unlicensed market.

While the KSA’s Autumn Report on the Dutch gambling market shows that channelisation remains well above the government’s 80 per cent target, reaching an estimated 95 per cent, the industry groups think the figure may be lower. The trade bodies say that, based on player spending and revenue figures, the channelisation rate is more likely to be around 87 per cent.

The groups also warned that recent research has shown that minors are accessing gambling via illegal providers and that such groups are “in danger of disappearing from statistics when they deserve extra protection”.