Operator's failure to protect young adults costs it €734,000 in the Netherlands

• The Netherlands Gambling Authority fined a licensed operator €734,000 for failing to protect young adult players from excessive gambling
• The company secured a temporary court injunction preventing its name from being disclosed, pending a possible appeal
• The regulator emphasized its commitment to enforcing online duty of care, especially toward vulnerable groups like 18-23-year-olds

The Netherlands Gambling Authority has issued a new penalty against an unnamed operator, fining the anonymous company €734,000 ($835,000), citing failures to protect young adults. This is the first time the regulator has issued a penalty tied to a licensed operator failing to adequately protect young adults, in particular.

The operator targeted by the watchdog is a licensed market gambling company that failed to adequately protect young adults from excessive gambling, the regulator stipulated in an official statement published on its website.

Dutch regulator raises concerns over player protection among accounts with the highest losses

The name of the party at fault has been withheld from the public for the time being because the operator has requested a temporary court injunction, which has been granted.

Because the penalty can be appealed, the court said that revealing the name before establishing the fairness of the fine was imprudent and ordered the Netherlands Gambling Authority to refrain from publishing the identity of the offending party for the time being.

The Chairman of the Board of the regulator, Michel Groothuizen, commented on the latest enforcement action in a translated statement shared on the official website:

"We have a licensed gambling market based on the idea that anyone who wants to gamble can do so safely. That is why providers have a duty of care towards their players and must respond adequately to excessive gaming."

This could very well be the stiffest penalty issued against a licensed and regulated gambling company in the newly-regulated Dutch iGaming market and is a break from the watchdog’s usual enforcement actions that have mostly targeted offshore websites that the watchdog insisted on calling illegal in public statements.

The Netherlands Gambling Authority said that it had picked the files of the 10 players with the largest losses and that it established violations in each case, with the focus falling on young adults aged 18-23, and supposedly the strongest protected group under Dutch regulation and law. The regulator said that some players were able to spend thousands of euros before triggering interventions.

Groothuizen explained that the regulator has been stepping up its supervision of the country’s so-called online duty of care, which puts an extra emphasis on protecting young adults, who are deemed among the most vulnerable groups of gamblers.

The regulator insisted that it wished to see licensees not fail in their duty of care, especially for vulnerable player groups such as young adults. Recently, the Netherlands Gambling Authority published a new report covering H2 2024 in terms of gambling trends.

Dutch regulator's market-wide oversight intensifies

The regulator noted that with the introduction of its new measures on October 1, 2024, the players with losses exceeding €1,000 every month were contributing 23% to the country’s total gross gaming revenue, down from 73% previously.

As Casino Guru's Head of Data and Complaints, Matej Novota, cautioned at the time, despite the drop in contributions, these players most likely did not just stop playing or start spending less, raising more difficult questions for the regulator.

Last week, the watchdog also issued a €1.2m ($1.36m) fine against Techno Offshore Ltd, accusing the company of failing to comply with the watchdog despite multiple interventions.

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