KSA steps up 2024 ‘Safe Play’ player protection agenda

The Netherlands Gaming Authority (KSA) has released the new vision of its ‘Safe Play’ mission together with its updated objectives.

As part of its Supervisory Agenda 2024, the objectives highlight the areas where the KSA believes need to be strengthened with more robust risk protections.

Going forward into the year, the topics of particular focus as described by the regulatory watchdog will be:

• Control of duty of care/addiction prevention: players are protected from risky or problematic gambling;
• Combating illegal online offerings with further attention to the entire chain: at least 90% of players play with legal providers;
• Support of partners, independent investigations and interventions in the physical domain: the KSA fights physical illegal gambling together with its partners (such as municipalities, police, OM, RIECS, Tax and FIOD);
• Compliance with data delivery: providers provide the data necessary for monitoring in a timely, complete and accurate manner.

These have all been previously established as primary objectives in KSA’s 2020-2024 strategy, which states that player safety is central to the regulator’s mission of ensuring safe play and preventing abuse.

The three main goals are “protecting consumers, preventing gambling addiction and combatting illegality and crime”.

With the new vision for 2024 now in full swing, the changes compared to 2023 will see a heavier emphasis on the duty of care being implemented, a more effective data-driven approach to risk-driven monitoring, as well as improved interventions by looking into the entire chain of illegal supply.

What’s more, the KSA’s fight against providers who facilitate “intemperate” gambling behaviour will continue in full swing, tracking them down and fully enforcing the law when necessary.

Thanks to additional safeguards like the country’s CRUKS self-exclusion programme, the Netherlands has seen a decline in the number of problem gamblers between 2017 and 2022.

The latest data from LADIS – the Dutch national addiction monitoring system – showcased that the number of patients in gambling addiction care, as well as that of first admissions, has reduced by more than 20% for that period.