NETHERLANDS Law and Practice Contributed by: Alan Littler, Justin Franssen and Chris Adriaansz, Franssen Tolboom
month (players 24 years of age or older) or EUR150 a month (players 18 years of age up to and includ- ing 23); • remote licence holders carry out affordability checks for players that reach a net deposit thresh- old ‒ the threshold sits at EUR700 a month (play- ers 24 years of age or older) or EUR300 a month (players 18 years of age up to and including 23) and deposits must be blocked for the remainder of the calendar month or until players can prove that they can bear the financial consequences of their behaviour; and • NGA policy rules be tightened with respect to the operator’s duty of care – operators are required, for example, to be able to recognise, and act upon, problematic gambling behaviour within one hour. In light of the evaluation of the RGA, Members of Par- liament have asked the State Secretary to investigate other RG measures. Concrete measures are a prohi- bition on “max bet” and “turbo” buttons, and cross- operator limits (see 1.1 Current Outlook and Recent Changes ). Other measures may follow in parallel, but the discussion on the exact substance of those meas- ures has been too generic at the time of publication of this guide. 8. Anti-Money Laundering (AML) 8.1 AML Legislation Currently, casinos and all remote gambling licensees fall within the scope of the revised Dutch Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorist Financing Act ( Wet ter voorkoming van witwassen en financieren van terror - isme (Wwft), or the “AML Act”). Other licensed opera- tors (including arcades) are exempted from the AML Act requirements. The NGA issued a non-binding guidance document on the AML Act for remote gambling licence holders and land-based casinos (the “AML Guidelines”). 8.2 AML Requirements Relevant gambling operators will have to follow a risk- based approach with regard to drafting and imple- menting their AML policy.
An important consequence of AML obligations is the requirement for licence holders to obtain a (copy of the) player’s identity document during the registration process. Furthermore, operators must demonstrate that they constantly monitor their business relationship with the customer and money transactions by means of customer due diligence (CDD) checks. CDD data on higher-risk players – for example, those from high-risk areas ‒ must be updated more frequently. Unusual transactions, whether conducted or intended, must be reported to the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU Nederland). Whether a transaction is unusual must be assessed on the basis of objective (ie, transactions reported to the police) and subjective (ie, reason to assume a connection to money laundering) indicators. The NGA is also the regulatory authority concerning advertisements for gambling offers. As noted in 6.3 Affiliates , the NGA has taken action against advertise- ments for unlicensed gambling offers on the basis of the BGA. The Advertising Code Committee ( Stichting Reclame Code ) is responsible for enforcement on the basis of the self-regulatory Dutch Advertising Code ( Ned- erlandse Reclame Code ) and the Advertising Code for Online Games of Chance ( Reclame Code Online Kansspelen (ROK)). The former applies to the land- based operators, whereas the latter applies to remote gambling operators. The Dutch Media Authority is the regulatory author- ity concerning advertisements on media services (ie, television, radio and video platform services). 9.2 Definition of Advertising The Decree on Recruitment, Advertising and Addiction Prevention ( Besluit werving, reclame en verslaving- spreventie kansspelen ) contains the following broad definition of recruitment and advertising activities: “Any form of communication in which licence holders 9. Advertising 9.1 Regulatory/Supervisory Agency
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