Rene Jansen is the Chair of Kansspelautoriteit. He has reiterated “crime shouldn’t pay”, and vowed to continue “hitting companies where it hurts”, regarding violations of Dutch gaming legislation.
Jansen’s latest blog post stated that it was “paying off” for game providers to legally offer their games. He also claimed that the penalty package adopted by the online market when it opened on October 1, 2020, “has produced good results”.
It must be profitable for game providers to legally offer their games. This is only possible when we penalize illegal supply severely,” he said.
Jansen backed an approach whereby threats are issued through an order that is subject to periodic penalties payments. He reiterated that the regulator was not opposed to taking firm actions, as EUR28m of fines were issued to seven parties at the end last year.
He continued, “These fine cases involve providers who don’t seem to care much about our Dutch laws and certainly don’t seem to be looking out for the best interests their players.”
“For instance, there’s no age check or it is suggested incorrectly that this is a legal provider.
These types of sites encourage crime by, for instance, making money laundering easier by providing anonymous payment methods.
In order to take on these large fish, we look at the website data and number of players who have a Dutch IP Address and give priority to parties that attract most Dutch players.
You must earn a license from the Gaming Authority, and you have to live up to that licence every day.
The Ksa has continued to maintain this approach into 2023. They have been on a regulatory rampage, issuing a number of sanctions. These include a penalty of EUR900,000.00 to Shark77. EUR400,000.00 to Joi Gaming. EUR350,000.00 to Bingoal. EUR900,000.00 each to Equinox Dynamics from Curacao and Domiseda and Partners in Slovakia.
As part of the EUR26m total, N1 Interactive (12.64m EUR), Videoslots (9.87m EUR), Betpoint Group (1.78m EUR), Probe Investments (1.12m EUR) and Fairload (EUR900k EUR) were all fined a total EUR26m.
In March, the Ksa announced its intention to collect EUR4.41m in penalties from Gambmix, after an appeal against the sanction was denied. Hillside New Media Malta (the Malta-based operation of bet365) received a EUR400,000 fine, and Red Ridge Marketing received a EUR675,000 fine.
Winning Poker Network was also given a cease and desist notice, BetEnt owned by Entain was fined EUR400,000 due to a violation of advertising laws and Merkur Casino Almere was penalised EUR45,000 for failing to meet statutory audit requirements.
He continued, “We want to ensure that people in the Netherlands can play a wide range of safe games online and are protected from excessive participation and gambling dependence.”
“We want to ensure that the costs of obtaining and maintaining a license for licensed providers continue to be profitable. We are keen to make sure that license holders live up to the ‘playing safe’ principle in practice. “You must earn a license from the Gaming Authority, and then live up to that every day.”
