One euro in two
Michel Groothuizen, who has chaired the Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) since July 2024, set out the plan in a column on the regulator's website on 14 October. It marks five years since the Dutch online gambling market was legalised and the first licensed sites opened.[1][2]
Study after study, he writes, finds that about 90% of Dutch online gamblers play only with licensed operators. Measured in money the picture is different: for every euro gambled legally, one goes to the illegal market. Fining illegal operators sends a clear signal, in his account, but achieves very little when it comes to collecting the money.[1]
For the past year and a half, the KSA has therefore also worked to make illegal sites harder to find and to stop payments reaching them.[1] Its orders against illegal sites include one against luckygem.com.
Fines for Big Tech, or a deal
Groothuizen recalls a parliamentary committee debate in September. There, Bart Bikkers, a member of parliament for the VVD party, argued that the KSA should fine the very large online platforms that make illegal gambling visible. The regulator, Groothuizen writes, can gather convincing evidence that such platforms help illegal gambling in the Netherlands and across Europe, including ads aimed at people in self-exclusion registers and at under-18s.[1]
Dutch law and the EU's Digital Services Act both offer grounds to act, he says, although under the Digital Services Act the decision is the European Commission's. But a case against a company with almost unlimited money could take five years to reach a final ruling, with no certainty of winning. A lost case, in his words, is worse than one not yet started.[1]
What a white list would mean for operators
So the KSA is also negotiating. Last spring, Groothuizen writes, the KSA and several other European regulators met Google and Meta in Dublin, where both have their European headquarters. A joint task force is now drawing up, together with Google, a white list of all legal gambling operators in the EU. Every operator not on it would by definition be in breach, he writes, and Google could keep it out.[1]
He gives no date for the list and does not say which regulators take part. If the platforms do too little, he writes, the legal route stays open, and the regulator "will not hesitate" to take one of them on.[1]
Sources
- Kansspelautoriteit (Netherlands) — Verleiden of vechten? Of allebei? (column by Michel Groothuizen, 14 October 2026, Dutch). Five years of the legal market, the 90% and the euro-for-euro estimate, fines and collection, the parallel track, the September debate, the evidence, the Digital Services Act, the Dublin meeting, the white list and the legal route.
- Government of the Netherlands — Benoeming voorzitter Kansspelautoriteit (8 March 2024, Dutch). Michel Groothuizen's appointment as chair of the Kansspelautoriteit from 1 July 2024.
