KSA issues penalty against Blue High House S.A.

The Dutch Gaming Authority (KSA) has minced no words nor twiddled any thumbs in enforcing the rules of the regulated gaming market in the Netherlands. In a second enforcement move over the past several days, the regulator has gone after Blue High House S.A., which the watchdog alleges has offered games of chance to Dutch customers without the pertinent licenses.

This constitutes an offense. The regulator has named website bet online dot ag as the offending entity operated by Blue High House S.A. and has called on the operator to cease and desist all operations. Failure to do so would result in a €43,000 weekly penalty, which will accumulate to a maximum of €129,000. Once this penalty is applied, the KSA will revisit the case and may pursue a stiffer penalty just like it’s doing in the case of LCS Limited.

LCS Limited, however, has refuted the claims made by the regulator that it had been breaching Dutch gambling law, and said that a recent fine of €2m was excessive and unfair. The KSA has explained its methodology in both LCS and Blue High House S.A.’s cases. Essentially, the regulator investigates operators based on the number of Dutch visitors to their websites.

The regulator reminded that the only way to offer games of chance in the Netherlands is through a legal and licensed offer, which comes with a permit from the KSA. Specifically, investigators from the KSA were able to establish that the website had received 136,569 visits between May 2022 and May 2023, triggering an action.

The regulator further noted that its investigators were able to fill in personal details, state that they are from the Netherlands, and use a mobile phone for registration with the country’s extension, +31. Various operators have taken an issue with the regulator’s methodology. For one, some stated that the regulator was purposefully using VPNs and went to extreme lengths to register.

However, the watchdog has always maintained that if a site is not licensed to operate in the Netherlands it should have done everything in its power to stem registrations from the country.

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