Dutch Duty of Care Fine Ramps Pressure On Industry Under Siege

The Netherlands Gambling Authority (KSA) has fined an operator over €880,000 for not treating its customers with adequate care, creating highly unwelcome negative PR for the industry at exactly the moment when it is desperate for positivity.

The KSA announced today (June 11) that it was fining licensed operator 711 a total of €886,000 for a series of duty of care failings, having found violations in all ten player files that it requested to view.

As part of its routine compliance sweeps, the regulator requested detailed gambling and customer care data on ten randomly selected high spenders at the operator.

The authority said that 711 had not properly analysed the gambling behaviour of its customers or taken the right measures to intervene when they showed signs of risky play.

In one case a player was allowed to lose €40,000 in four days before they were contacted for a wellness check and a source of funds request, the KSA said.

The contact that did take place was also not sufficiently in-depth to identify if the individual had a gambling problem, the regulator added.

In another case, a player was allowed to lose almost €200,000 over several weeks before they were contacted for a source of funds check, the KSA said.

The fine is the latest in a series of penalties related to the duty of care that operators own to their customers, which unlike many other European nations is an established part of the country’s gambling act.

The largest penalty so far is a €4m fine for Unibet operator Optdeck, but regulatory officials have said they continue to find failings on their random sweeps.

711 declined to give a comment to EEGaming, saying that it has a policy of not speaking with the press.

The decision by the KSA can be appealed.

The bigger context

The penalty for 711 is not the first punishment for duty of care failings in the Netherlands and it is unlikely to be the last, but this particular fine comes at a pivotal moment for the future of Dutch gambling.

The industry is awaiting a statement from minister Claudia van Bruggen on how she will change gambling policy over the next year.

She is under extreme pressure from several organised groups within parliament to enact tough new rules on a market that is already struggling to keep players out of the black market.

Most notably there have been repeated calls for a complete advertising ban, in addition to the existing ban on all non-targeted gambling advertising in the Netherlands.

A complete ban is opposed by the KSA, which revealed recently that it had held meetings with van Bruggen to make their case and said she “took our concerns very seriously”.

There have also been calls for a hard cap on the number of online gambling licences in the Netherlands, something that the KSA also argues is not in the best interests of consumers.

However the issuing of yet another reputation-damaging fine for the sector further adds to the risk that van Bruggen will feel a need to give in to public and political pressure and really turn the screw on the beleaguered sector.

Experts estimate that channelisation for online gambling in the Netherlands may be as low as 45 percent.

Rates of gambling with licensed operators have collapsed following the introduction of deposit limits, which can only be removed via affordability checks, and tax increases which have seen rates rise to 37.8 percent of gross gambling revenue.

One small crumb of relief for the industry will be upcoming proof of what something they warned would happen: Increasing the tax rate has resulted in lower income for the government, as players likely stop gambling or seek better odds offshore.

“A new impact assessment of the gambling tax will probably be published at the end of June, showing that the increase in the gambling tax did not achieve its intended goal,” revealed KSA head of licences and supervision, Ella Seijsener, speaking at the recent Gaming in Holland conference.

Analysts suggest that growth in the online market has slowed rapidly in recent months and that although channelisation may not decline further from here under current market conditions, there is equally little hope of lifting it back above 50 percent as things stand.

But far from an easing of rules, the local industry expects things to get tougher from here and are simply hoping that van Bruggen’s manifesto for the next phase of Dutch gambling regulation avoids some of the more extreme measures called for by her fellow politicians.

The post Dutch Duty of Care Fine Ramps Pressure On Industry Under Siege appeared first on EE Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.