Kingdom of the Netherlands
The Netherlands opened its licensed online market on 1 October 2021 under the Remote Gambling Act (Koa), which took effect on 1 April 2021 and is overseen by the Netherlands Gambling Authority (Kansspelautoriteit, Ksa). Licensed operators must connect players to CRUKS, the national self-exclusion register, and comply with strict identification, duty-of-care and intervention obligations, under which an operator is expected to detect and act on signs of harm rather than wait for a player to ask for help. The Ksa has been an active enforcer, penalising both unlicensed supply and licensees whose duty-of-care systems fell short. Advertising has been progressively closed down since the market opened: untargeted advertising was banned from 1 July 2023, and sponsorship has been phased out, leaving a regime far more restrictive than the one operators licensed into. The defining commercial issue is the tax burden, which has risen faster than anywhere comparable in Europe. Gambling tax reached 34.2% of gross gaming revenue in 2025, up from 30.5%, with a further rise to 37.8% scheduled for 2026, alongside a separate 1.95% levy on the same base. Whether that trajectory holds channelisation or pushes players offshore is the open question in the Dutch market.
Remote Gambling Act
Wet kansspelen op afstand (Koa)
Remote gambling licence (Koa)
Gambling tax (kansspelbelasting) scheduled to rise again, to 37.8% of gross gaming revenue.
Figures on this record are analyst estimates, not official regulator data.
Two pressures dominate. First, tax: the kansspelbelasting rose to 34.2% in 2025 and is scheduled to reach 37.8% in 2026, squeezing operator margins and raising channelisation concerns. Second, tightening player protection, including deposit-limit and advertising restrictions and a proposal to raise the minimum age for high-risk gambling from 18 to 21. Watch how far the tax rises push players toward unlicensed sites.
PowNed sent someone registered on Cruks into gaming venues using another person's identification, and got in. One of the three venues under scrutiny is a state-owned Holland Casino site in Eindhoven.
Nederlandse Loterij is not waiting for the regulator. It is suing an unlicensed operator directly, and the complaint singles out TikTok advertising aimed at Dutch players.
Researchers at the University of Amsterdam have built a machine-learning model that reads betting behaviour rather than what players say about themselves, and released it free. The Kansspelautoriteit funded it and is careful to call it an instrument rather than a substitute for duty of care.
The Netherlands Gaming Authority has renewed Holland Casino Online's licence for a further five years from October 2026, confirming the state-backed operator's continued place in the regulated Dutch market even as a 37.8% GGR tax rate squeezes its margins and the broader industry warns of channelisation risk.
The Netherlands Gambling Authority has penalised a licensed operator for failing to step in as customers lost tens of thousands of euros, part of a widening enforcement wave the regulator says will produce several more duty-of-care fines.
The Dutch cabinet has dropped its plan to raise the online slots age to 21 and instead bet its five-year strategy on a near-total ad ban and a market-wide deposit cap. The gamble: deepen protection inside the licensed market without pushing players, and their money, to the black market.
A debt crisis among young people in Enschede has reopened a Dutch debate that won't go away. With one in five local youngsters in debt, a councillor is pushing for the legal online gambling age to climb to 24, a level that would be unprecedented in Europe.
The Netherlands has flagged thousands of unlicensed gambling adverts to Meta in a single month. With the country's licensed market shrinking and the black market growing, the role of social platforms in fuelling that shift is becoming impossible to ignore.
The return of 888 to the Netherlands via a ComeOn Group licence has triggered formal parliamentary scrutiny. The answers could reshape how the Dutch regulator assesses the history of operators seeking market access through third-party arrangements.
Kansspelautoriteit
ICLG (International Comparative Legal Guides)
Kansspelautoriteit / Dutch government
Gambling Insider
Kansspelautoriteit