VVD and PvdA—the ruling coalition parties of the Netherlands—recently reached an agreement about the regulation of online sports betting. The agreement includes two amendments to the proposed remote gambling bill now being considered by the Dutch House of Representatives.
The first amendment, which targets match fixing, would prohibit betting on amateur matches and also end side betting on events that a single individual could control, such as yellow cards in soccer or double faults in tennis. Betting on halftime scores or total number of goals scored still would be allowed.
The second amendment would require operators to report suspicious betting patterns to the Sports Betting Intelligence Unit of the Netherlands Gaming Authority (Kansspelautoriteit).
NOC*NSF, the overall coordinating Dutch sports organization, and KNVB, the Dutch football association, both approve of the proposed amendments.
However, State Secretary Klaas Dijkhoff of Security and Justice did not answer the House of Representatives’ second round of questions about the proposed remote gaming bill as promised “around the middle of November at the latest.” Some observers said the announcement of the agreement could have been timed to draw attention away from further delays by Dijkhoff.
In addition, in regard to the proposed bans on certain side bets, sports law researcher Ben van Rompuy said, “In case of national restrictions, players will simply move to foreign operators. Similar bans in Spain and Italy have already failed.”
Eric Konings, sports betting integrity officer at Unibet, added operators should be more involved in reporting and fighting match fixing. He noted in the UK, operators, regulators and sports associations have cooperated with some success.
