Kansspelautorieit, the Dutch gambling regulator, is taking draconian measures towards limiting the illegal gambling activities that take place on the territory of the country.
Every player or gambling operator that violates the implemented rules and regulations will face severe penalties. The decision for the tightened gaming regime was taken with the aim of protecting the players and avoiding giving the grey markets advantage over the regulated ones.
From now on, any gambling operator that disobeys the regime will be fined and its payment methods and transactions will be limited.
Up to now, the Kansspelautorieit authorities have fined three companies accused of misusing the rules and regulations for their own benefit and providing the residents of Netherlands with opportunities to take part in illegal gambling activities.
Two of the operators are supposed to pay a fine of €260,000 in total while the third company will pay only €50,000 because its involvement in the illegal activities was said to be subtle and less influential.
The two gambling operators went too far in popularizing their services in Netherlands. For the purpose, they used various advertising methods, including TV commercials.
The authorities have warned the gambling providers to stop popularizing their products in Netherlands. However, the warning of the regulators wasn’t taken into account. The only thing the providers did was switching the language of the advertisements from Dutch to English without closing their websites. They continued influencing their target audience – namely the residents of Netherlands.
The main goal of the Dutch regulator is establishing strict rules and ensuring that both – players and providers comply with them. In case any attempt for taking part in an illegal gambling activity is noticed, the transactions, the players make towards particular gambling websites, will be prohibited.
Surprising or not, the new implemented rules took effect pretty soon and according to a reliable source, several platforms that provide convenient online payment methods, including iDEAL, MasterCard and Sisow, have already blocked the transactions made to unlicensed gambling operators.
Currently, the Kansspelautorieit regulators are trying their best to make more payment processors block this kind of transactions but they are well aware of the fact that in order to achieve their goal, they should ensure that as many payment methods platforms as possible are on board otherwise all the efforts might turn into a complete waste of time, efforts and money.
The main argument of the KSA regulators is that if a gaming provider that is operating within the unregulated market makes no profit, the lack of money and players will make the managers come to the conclusion that it is not beneficial to operate illegally.
The authorities are also planning the implementing of a new gambling bill, which means that if it passes, the gambling operators, available on Netherlands soil, will have to pay another tax, equal to 20% of their gross revenue. Understandably, the gambling providers are not too excited about the proposal and they requested the tax to be 10% although the percentage was also considered by many operators to be too high.
