René Jansen, chairman of the Kansspelautoriteit (KSA), the Netherlands Gambling Authority, December 16 spoke on the state of the Dutch online gaming market about a year after it launched on October 1, 2021. His speech was made to the Amsterdam Gambling & Awareness Congress 2022.
During that time (actually, one year and two months), the market now includes 24 operators who serve 563,000 players. KSA has three main goals, he said, to protect consumers, to battle gambling addiction and combat illegal gambling and crime.
That creates a tension between the KSA’s other responsibility, which is to issue licenses. The number of gaming licenses has doubled in that year.
Jansen told the Congress: “It may seem contradictory at first glance; on the one hand, our legislation allows more companies to legally offer games of chance, and on the other hand, insist on addiction prevention.”
He added, “The reality is that the Remote Gambling Act allows us to exert more influence on this prevention through our supervision of licensees.”
Part of that job is to accept that gambling products are “a fact of life,” he said, and need to be organized to protect the safety of consumers, while ensuring that the games are run fairly.
When the KSA finds out that is not the case, he said, “we will take action against those abuses where we can.”
He gave as an example the €400,000 fine against Toto Online, a subsidiary of Nederlandse Loterij for advertising to 18–23-year-olds.
He noted that visible marketing of gaming, both broadcast and billboards, has noticeably increased. This has prompted political and public debate on whether existing restrictions should be tightened.
This is a normal process, he said. “The opening up of the market and the number of providers trying to secure a place on the market often leads to a kind of ‘overkill’ in such an initial phase, before normalization takes place.” It has prompted intervention by the Authority when needed.
During the recent World Cup, the KSA was active to prevent advertising “overkill,” he said.
It has also issued warnings to operators against “cashback bonuses” while keeping a close eye for violations of Dutch anti-money laundering statutes.
He also spoke on gambling addiction and how the KSA fights it to prevent its social and financial consequences. It supervises operators on “duty of care,” self-exclusion and to maintain an addiction prevention fund.
He concluded that the KSA’s number one goal is “prevent addiction as much as possible.”
