KSA Renews Eight Dutch Licences to 2031 After Weighing Five Years of Breaches

The 2021 licences expire at the end of this month. Bet365, TOTO, Holland Casino, Kansino, FairPlay, Bingoal, GGPoker and Betcity have theirs to 2031. New in the renewal test: every violation definitively established in five years, what the operator did about it, and "additional points of attention" for some. The rest of the market has under two weeks.

• The Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) has granted the first eight renewal licences (vervolgvergunningen) for online gambling, it said on 17 September; the original licences issued when the market opened in 2021 expire at the end of September 2026 and the new ones run from October 2026 to September 2031
• The eight are TOTO Online B.V. (TOTO and Winnitt), Holland Casino N.V. (Holland Casino Online), Play North Limited (Kansino), FPO Nederland B.V. (FairPlay Casino), Bingoal Nederland B.V., Hillside (New Media Malta) Plc (Bet365), NSUS Malta Limited (GGPoker) and Betent B.V. (Betcity)
• New for a renewal application, the regulator said, is that it "also explicitly looks at the violations that have been definitively established in the past five years"; applicants had to explain what they did to remedy them and prevent a repeat
• "On the basis of this assessment the KSA has given some providers additional points of attention," the statement said, without naming them; all eight "meet the requirements for obtaining a licence"
• The remaining licence holders from the 2021 cohort have not yet been announced and their current licences lapse in under two weeks

Eight Names, One New Test

The Netherlands' gambling regulator has issued its first eight five-year renewals to online operators, the Kansspelautoriteit said on Thursday, less than two weeks before the licences granted at the market's opening in October 2021 expire. The renewals run from October 2026 to the end of September 2031. TOTO Online, which operates TOTO and Winnitt; Holland Casino, for Holland Casino Online; Play North, for Kansino; FPO Nederland, for FairPlay Casino; Bingoal Nederland; Hillside (New Media Malta), for Bet365; NSUS Malta, for GGPoker; and Betent, for Betcity, are the eight.

The regulator described what it tested and what is different this time. "New in the applications for a renewal licence is, among other things, that the KSA also explicitly looks at the violations that have been definitively established in the past five years," it said. "The providers had to explain which measures they have taken to remedy the violations found and to prevent them from being committed again. On the basis of this assessment the KSA has given some providers additional points of attention." It did not say which providers, or what the points were. "All eight providers meet the requirements for obtaining a licence," the statement concluded, and may continue in the Dutch online market for the next five years.

Holland Casino Online's renewal had been announced by the operator in August; today's statement is the regulator's own list. The five-year record the KSA says it examined is a substantial one for several names on it. Its enforcement since 2021 has included a €886,000 penalty against 711 for duty-of-care failures, an order to Unibet to overhaul its anti-money laundering controls, and action this month after a broadcaster walked excluded players into casinos. Which of the 2021 licensees received "additional points of attention", and which have not yet been renewed at all, are the questions the statement leaves open.

The Market the Renewals Land In

The renewals arrive in a market the regulator's own chairman describes as under strain. Half of every euro Dutch players spend now goes to illegal operators, he said this week, and the government has proposed a near-total online advertising ban while dropping a plan to raise the gambling age to 21. The KSA has also just renewed Lotto BV's monopolies to 2031 while the Council of State considers whether they are lawful. A five-year licence in the Netherlands is, on current form, a five-year seat at a table where the tax rate, the advertising rules and the product limits are all still moving.

The Compliance Record Is Now the Licence Application

The first Dutch licensing round in 2021 tested policies. This one tests behaviour: the KSA says it looked at every violation it had definitively established against an applicant in five years and asked what the operator did next. That is a different regulator from the one that opened the market, and it changes the value of every fine and every order issued since. An enforcement action in 2023 was a cost; in 2026 it was a question on the renewal form. Operators who treated Dutch penalties as a cost of doing business have just discovered they were also building a file, and "additional points of attention" is the polite name for what the file produced.

Eight Out, Unknown Remaining, Thirteen Days

The statement's silence is its most interesting feature. Eight renewals are announced; the number of applications is not; the number refused or still pending is not. The 2021 licences expire at the end of September, which leaves under two weeks for every other operator that launched with the market to receive its renewal or explain to its customers why it has not. Among them are operators with enforcement records of their own. If the KSA intended the timing to concentrate minds, it has, and the next list will be read for who is missing rather than who is on it.

Bet365 and GGPoker on the First List Is Its Own Signal

Two of the eight are Malta-registered international operators, and the regulator put them in the first batch alongside the state-owned TOTO and Holland Casino. Whatever the KSA's assessment of past breaches produced, it did not produce a home-market preference. That matters for the argument, made regularly in the Dutch parliament, that foreign licensees are the source of the market's problems: the regulator's first act of the renewal cycle was to give the biggest of them five more years.

Eight operators know they are in the Dutch market until 2031. The rest find out by the end of the month, and the regulator has told them what it was reading.