Techno Offshore Ltd, an igaming provider, has been fined €1.2m by Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) for illegally targeting the Dutch market.
According to the gambling authority, the company made its services available to Dutch consumers via two of its domains – nolimitbet.com and simplecasino.com.
The KSA found no comprehensive measures in place to obstruct the access to these websites, including “no visible age checks” at registration. What’s more, games on offer had autoplay and turboplay options.
With automatic bets enabled, players remove the need to wager manually after every spin. These functions have been outright banned by the KSA, as it views them as facilitators of risky gambling behaviours. Just recently, the regulator contacted all licensed Dutch operators to remind them of their duty to keep autoplay switched off.
Michel Groothuizen, Chairperson of the KSA, commented: “Providers in the Netherlands must comply with all kinds of rules to protect the player from gambling addiction.
“With illegal providers, we often see that the prevention of risky gambling behavior is not taken into account in any way, for example by not using age control, allowing payments with crypto or a lack of gaming limits.
“We are acting hard against these types of parties, because they lure players to illegal offers and players there are insufficiently protected.”
Market overhaul on course
Launched in 2021 by the Remote Gambling Act (KOA), regulated online gambling in the Netherlands is currently undergoing reform led by Legal Secretary Teun Struycken.
Struycken wants to see more player protections implemented within a stricter licensing regime for operators. A draft bill is currently being readied for parliamentary discussion sometime this year, which includes plans to increase the overseeing powers of the KSA.
Other changes include measures against the prevalence of problem gambling such as making 21 the minimum age for “high-risk” online games, mandatory deposit limits for license holders, more restrictions on gambling ads, and increasing the efficiency of anti-black market efforts.
