KSA goes after BetCity, fines company €2.65m

• KSA has issued its latest and one of its largest penalties against a regulated company in the sector
• The regulator investigated 10 accounts with the largest gambling losses, tying them to young customers
• BetCity has argued that the failures cited by the regulator were committed under the previous ownership

The Dutch Gambling Authority, or KSA, as the regulator is known for its Dutch acronym, fined the BetCity (BetEnt) brand for what the watchdog alleges to be a failure to protect young gamblers from harm.

The company has been handeddown a €2,650,000 fine, citing failures to fulfill its duty of care. To arrive at this conclusion, the regulator has taken a closer look at the ten players that registered the highest losses with the operator.

Regulator lays its case against BetCity

According to the investigation, each player profile had some irregularities associated with it. All of the accounts were held by young adults, aged 18-23, and all of them had incurred losses amounting to tens of thousands of euros.

Commenting on the regulatory action, KSA Chairman of the Board, Michel Groothuzien, said:

"We have a licensed gambling market based on the principle that anyone who wants to gamble can do so safely. Therefore, providers have a duty of care to their players and must respond appropriately to excessive gambling. Large losses are an important signal of this.

We have intensified our oversight of the online duty of care, and we are taking strong action against violations like those we observe here at BetCity. We truly do not want to see providers fail so badly in their duty of care, especially for vulnerable young players."

The investigation was first launched in 2023 after KSA found out that young adults had incurred large amounts of losses. In one particular case, a player had lost €43,000 over the course of a single loss, and losses for the same person during the year prior amounted to €63,000.

The company chalks up breaches to the previous owners' failures

Another case had to do with a player who lost €80,000 throughout a single year. In all of these cases, and the rest, the KSA alleged that BetCity had not acted promptly by either failing to spot signs of gambling-related harm or acting too late, given the amounts generated as losses by the players.

While the KSA has continued to regulate and oversee the market, issuing penalties in case of breaches, it has also acknowledged that its own guidelines on risk analysis have been lacking. For its part, BetCity has said that any failures reported by the regulator were because of shortcomings under the previous ownership.

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