Kansspelautoriteit issued on Monday its first illegal gambling fine of the year, slapping €400,000 on 1xBet and xbet-1.com
Days after the Dutch Senate passed the Remote Gaming Bill, paving the way for the re-organization of the local online gambling market, the Netherlands Gaming Authority slapped another hefty fine to erring operators serving Dutch customers without being permitted to do so.
Internet gaming companies 1x Corp. NV, registered in Curacao, and Cyprus-based Exinvest Limited were fined €400,000 for offering online gaming and betting services to Dutch punters, even though foreign operators are barred from the local market.
The Dutch gambling regulator, Kansspelautoriteit, said in a press release issued this past Monday that it has conducted a probe into the activities of the two companies in the country and has discovered that both served local customers for a certain period of time.
1x Corp. NV is the operator representing 1xBet.com, a popular Russian gambling operation that is no stranger to regulatory trouble in a number of jurisdictions, while Exinvest owns xbet-1.com.
Kansspelautoriteit said that both websites could be reached from within the Netherlands, targeted local customers in Dutch language, and featured locally popular iDeal as an available payment method. The gaming regulator went on to say in its press release that both websites offered a wide variety of gaming and betting options.
Kansspelautoriteit also discovered that another 83 websites with Dutch language versions were operated by the two companies. Logging into any of those was possible with a single account.
As mentioned earlier, the Dutch Senate has finally passed the Remote Gaming Bill nearly three years after the lower house of the Parliament cast its positive vote on the piece. The bill provides for the re-organization of the local market in a manner that will enable international operators to obtain a license from Kansspelautoriteit and operate in a regulated environment.
However, operators previously fined by the regulator will have to wait for two years (after the enactment of the new regulations) before being able to apply for a local license, under a provision in the piece of legislation.
A Serial Troublemaker
1xBet’s tendency to target unregulated markets has got the online gambling operation in hot water on a number of occasions. Last fall, the website was one of three to be blocked in Israel, where the provision of gambling services is mostly illegal.
A Tel Aviv District Court ordered last October that www.p2vbet.com, www.1xbet.com, and www.totobet777.com be blocked to be prevented from targeting Israeli gamblers.
In Poland, more than 200 1xBet-associated domains have been added to the country’s blacklist of naughty unlicensed operators since it re-organized its market in April 2017. 1xBet has also received multiple slaps on the wrist from watchdogs in its motherland, Russia. The operation’s main website has blocked access from within the country, but it has hundreds of domains that still target local gamblers.
News emerged earlier this month that 1xBet was one of several dozens of operators to have been issued a license by the Italian gambling regulator, Agenzia delle dogane e dei monopoli, to operate in one of Europe’s largest regulated markets.
1xBet found itself embroiled in a bit of a controversy in Italy a few years ago. It was selected as the official international presenting partner of the country’s Serie A for the 2017-18 season. The deal faced heavy criticism by the government and regulators, which forced its termination.
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