KSA Works on an EU White List With Google and Holds Fines on Big Tech in Reserve

Five years after the Dutch online market opened, the Kansspelautoriteit's chairman says fines on illegal operators are hardly ever collected and suing a platform could take five years, so regulators are drawing up with Google a list of every legal operator in the EU, and anything not on it could be kept out.

• Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) chairman Michel Groothuizen says a joint task force is drawing up, with Google, a "white list" of all legal gambling operators in the EU, so that every other operator is by definition in breach and can be kept off Google
• The task force follows a meeting last spring in Dublin between several European regulators and Google and Meta, according to his column published on 14 October, five years after the Dutch online market opened
• Groothuizen says fining illegal operators sends a clear signal but has hardly any effect when it comes to collection, so for the past 18 months the KSA has also worked to make illegal sites harder to find and to stop payments to them
• He answers calls from VVD MP Bart Bikkers to fine the very large platforms by warning that a case could take five years and that a lost one is worse than none, although he says the KSA will "not hesitate" to litigate if cooperation fails
• Parliament adopted a Bikkers motion on 29 September asking the government to make it an offence for a platform to keep showing an illegal gambling ad after a removal request

The Regulator Answers the Call to Fine Big Tech With a Different Plan

Michel Groothuizen, chairman of the Kansspelautoriteit, marked five years since the Dutch online market was legalised with a column on 14 October headed "Tempt or fight? Or both?", setting out how the KSA now intends to tackle the illegal market that has outlasted it.

Study after study shows about 90% of Dutch online gamblers play only with legal operators, he wrote, but in money it is different: for every euro gambled legally, one goes to the illegal circuit. The KSA's monitoring report for the second half of 2025 puts player channelisation at 91% or 95%, depending on how players using both kinds of site are counted, and channelisation by gross gaming revenue at an estimated 53%, down from 56%, continuing what it calls a slow decline. That estimate rests on Google Ads search volumes.

Fining illegal operators gives "a clear signal", Groothuizen wrote in our translation, but has hardly any effect when it comes to collection. "Frustrating." For 18 months the KSA has therefore also worked to make illegal sites harder to find and to stop payments to and through them. "We are not there yet, but the direction is clear." The column gives no figures for fines collected, sites blocked or payments stopped.

Why the KSA Is Not Rushing to Court

At the committee debate on 3 September, VVD MP Bart Bikkers called for banks to be able to block payments to illegal sites and for illegal social media ads to be actively blocked, saying platforms could set their algorithms to filter them out, according to the parliamentary record. Groothuizen says Bikkers argued the KSA should fine the big platforms, as did gambling lawyer Justin Franssen. On 29 September the House adopted Bikkers's motion, co-signed by Tijs van den Brink (CDA) and Mohammed Mohandis (PRO), to make a platform that keeps showing an illegal gambling ad after a removal request liable to a KSA fine. Only PVV and FVD voted against.

Groothuizen says the KSA can prove the platforms facilitate illegal gambling, with ads aimed at people in European self-exclusion registers and at children running "in the thousands, if not hundreds of thousands", and that Dutch law and the Digital Services Act give grounds to act, though DSA cases are for the European Commission. But a lost case is worse than none. "A fine is a means for me, not an end." A near-limitless opponent would fight to the highest court, pushing a final ruling out to perhaps five years, and a sheriff who shoots and misses "gives the bandits a free pass".

Instead, the KSA and several European regulators met Google and Meta in Dublin last spring, both sides knowing litigation was the alternative. The result is a joint task force that is, among other things, drawing up with Google a white list of all legal operators in the EU; every other operator is then by definition in breach and can be barred by Google. "Hopefully that turns off a main tap." If the platforms fall short, "we will not hesitate" to take one on, he wrote. "Hold us to that."

A White List Inverts the Problem the KSA Keeps Losing

The KSA's enforcement record is a list of things that reappear: 26 cloned .co.nl sites taken down this month, thousands of ads reported to Meta, unpaid fines. A blacklist, which parliament also asked for on 29 September in a Mohandis motion for a central list of illegal operators, has to chase every new domain. A white list does not; it makes absence the offence. It builds on Google's certification rules, which now apply to every gambling advertiser, and the hard parts are undisclosed: which regulators are involved, whether it reaches search results or only ads, and when it takes effect. Meta is not named as a party to the list.

Patience Is a Strategy Only if the Clock Is Running

The case for cooperation is sound on its own terms: a lost case against Google or Meta would hand them a precedent, and five years is realistic against a well-funded defendant. But the KSA's own figures show GGR channelisation falling while the talks go on, and Groothuizen said in September that half of every euro already goes illegal. Parliament wants a fining power over platforms, and licensed operators are already in court with Meta. Tempting only works if the fight is credible, which is why the column ends on a promise to litigate. It sets no deadline for deciding.

The KSA has put a name to its bet that cooperation will deliver more, sooner, than fines. Five years in, with the money already split evenly, the white list is the test of whether that bet pays.