NETHERLANDS Law and Practice Contributed by: Alan Littler, Justin Franssen and Chris Adriaansz, Franssen Tolboom
Franssen Tolboom IJdok 21 1013 MM Amsterdam The Netherlands
Tel: +31 020 235 7200 Email: gaming@ft-l.nl Web: www.franssentolboom.nl/en/
1. Introduction 1.1 Current Outlook and Recent Changes New Policy Vision on Remote Gambling In 2025, the State Secretary for Justice and Security published a new policy vision on the remote (online) market in the Netherlands. This policy vision followed the evaluation of the Remote Gambling Act (RGA) that introduced the licensing regime for remote games of chance in the Netherlands in 2021. The new policy vision heralds a shift in policy, designed to protect citizens at large from gambling harms, with a broader focus than just protecting consumers. Vari- ous proposals are made to this end, although actual legislative proposals will probably not emerge until the second half of 2026 – especially in light of a general election in October 2025 and the subsequent process to form the new coalition government. Some proposals presented in the new policy vision are more concrete than others, the most notable being the following. • Increasing the minimum age for participating in the riskiest games of chance from 18 to 21 years of age. • Introducing a single cross-operator deposit limit; it will be possible to increase this on the basis of an affordability test for individual players. • Generally making the duty of care to prevent addic- tion more concrete, so as to reduce the scope for differences in interpretation/application across operators.
• Further restricting the scope for advertising. A “no, unless” approach will prevail for advertis- ing, whereby advertising will be prohibited unless permitted. Currently it is permitted subject to satisfying particular conditions around untargeted advertising. • Enabling the Netherlands Gambling Authority (NGA) to access licensed operators’ remote gam- bling offers using false IDs. This would allow the NGA to more effectively supervise remote gam- bling licence holders. The NGA is already allowed to register an account as a mystery guest, but this route is effectively useless as licence holders are required to obtain an identity document from all registering persons. • Enabling the NGA to “black out” or otherwise dis- able access to websites of illegal operators. • Changes to the addressees of provisions in the regulations. This is with a view to enabling the NGA to take effective measures against the likes of mar- keting companies, internet providers and financial institutions, who facilitate illegal gambling. This is not to say that the NGA currently has no means at all to enforce against these parties (see 11.1 Pow- ers ). There is little clarity with regards to what will happen when, in terms of the reforms signalled by the new policy. This is especially so in light of the fall of the cabinet before the summer of 2025, including the resignation of the State Secretary that published the new vision. First, a new cabinet could decide to move away from (parts of) the policy vision published by its predecessor. Secondly, given the elections in October 2025 and the formation of a cabinet (which is expect-
344 CHAMBERS.COM
Powered by FlippingBook