The Dutch Gambling Authority (Kansspelautoriteit, or KSA) has issued its largest ever fine against an unlicensed online gambling operator, handing Novatech a €24,846,000 penalty for illegally offering gambling services to players in the Netherlands through its Qbet.com and 55Bet.com platforms.

A separate fine of €1,795,000 was imposed on Fortaprime SRL, which operated a network of eight unlicensed sites, amonbet101.com, supraplay.com, amonbet.com, bilucky.com, gxspins.com, kaasino.com, hiddenjack.com, and luckymax7.com, all of which were accessible to Dutch players without the required national licence.

The KSA confirmed that both companies had previously been issued warnings and cease-and-desist orders. Neither complied. Investigators, acting as Dutch players, were able to create accounts, make deposits, and place bets across all platforms without encountering any technical barriers blocking access from the Netherlands.

Both operators compounded the core breach with a series of aggravating violations. The platforms carried no visible age verification system, and both accepted cryptocurrency and anonymous payment methods, practices the regulator said heightened the risk of money laundering and made it significantly harder to track the flow of funds.

KSA board chairman Michel Groothuizen made clear his frustration with the legal constraints on the regulator's sanctioning power. Under Dutch law, administrative fines for this category of offence are capped at 10% of an operator's global annual turnover. In Novatech's case, that ceiling proved a significant limitation. Groothuizen stated that the company had generated hundreds of millions of euros from Dutch players through its illegal offering, and that without the statutory cap, a fine exceeding €100m would have been more proportionate to the scale of the violation.

For Fortaprime, the investigation turned up a further dimension: its unlicensed sites had been actively promoted by Dutch social media influencers. The KSA issued a direct warning that individuals advertising or endorsing unlicensed gambling operators are themselves liable to face financial sanctions, a signal that enforcement is now being extended beyond operators to encompass the broader promotional ecosystem.

The KSA also reiterated that its enforcement toolkit extends well beyond direct fines. The regulator collaborates with payment service providers, banks, web hosting companies, and large technology firms to systematically dismantle the infrastructure that allows illegal operators to remain accessible to Dutch consumers. That approach reflects a broader shift in strategy: rather than pursuing individual operators reactively, the KSA has stated its intention to make illegal gambling structurally inaccessible in the Netherlands.

The record fine lands at a particularly sensitive moment for Dutch gambling regulation. The KSA's own monitoring data shows that the channelisation rate, the share of total gambling spend flowing to licensed operators, has fallen below 50% for the first time since the market opened in 2021. The black market now accounts for a larger share of total revenue than the licensed sector, driven in part by stricter player protections, advertising restrictions, and a gambling tax rate that rose to 37.8% of GGR at the start of 2026. With licence renewals due in October 2026 and a new coalition government still formulating gambling policy, the KSA's aggressive enforcement posture is a deliberate statement of intent.