The Netherlands Online Gambling Association made a series of recommendations following the release of the results of their latest annual survey conducted by IPSOS.
The NOGA online gambling barometer was released by the industry association. It noted that the market is maturing and growing, while the number of unlicensed providers has been declining.
The study found that 30% of young adults (18 to 34 years old) gambled on the internet in the past 12 months. This figure is up from 20 and 21 percent recorded for 2022 and respectively 2021.
Three out of five Dutch players are under 25 years old, and the majority (69%) is male. 94% of those who gambled online since the legalization of gambling were licensed providers.
The self-regulation by gambling providers of advertising also worked. NOGA reported that Dutch citizens saw fewer advertisements.
The report noted that “besides the encouraging figures in gambling advertisements, there is no change in the number at-risk gambling. However, among young adults, the percentage of gamblers who lie about their gambling behavior or spend more money than they planned is on the rise.”
The respondents also indicated that providers play an important role in the prevention of gambling problems. Nearly nine out of ten of those surveyed believed that they were responsible for providing good information about the risks associated with online gambling.
NOGA also has outlined three key recommendations that should be implemented to maintain momentum on the market, and one of these examples is the recognition legal entities.
Also, it is suggested that providers play a more responsible role by educating the players and making cancelation easier.
Finaly, the government is urged to focus on a wider age range than the 18-24-year-olds in order to eliminate any future problems.
It is a very important task that we all have to accomplish. It should be easy to identify licensed safe providers, whether you’ve gambled or not. This is especially true if the advertising ban will soon make it harder to recognise licensed safe providers.
It is encouraging to see the positive impact of legalisation becoming more evident. It is still too easy to be a victim of organised crime as an online gambler.
“For example, unlicensed providers continue to advertise online, even through major search engine. Dutch gamblers can also get in trouble on the many thousands of unlicensed sites.
It is our responsibility, along with the authorities, in the next few years to make licensed gambling offers even more secure and protect online gamblers better. We must also keep licensed gambling offers appealing enough to prevent gamblers from resorting to illegality.
