Onisac hit with €450,000 fine for breaching Dutch gaming law

Dutch gaming authority, Kansspelautoriteit (KSA), has continued its crackdown on non-compliant operators by issuing a €450,000 penalty to Gibraltar-based Onisac Limited, the company behind casino.com.

The penalty was issued in two parts: a fine of €200,000 was issued by the KSA after Onisac was found to be offering online games of chance. The fine had subsequently been doubled due to this being a repeated offence, after it was sanctioned by the KSA back in 2013.

Dutch law states that online games of chance are only permitted if a licence is granted, however the current Betting and Gaming Act offers no possibility for this. René Jansen, chairman of the KSA, commented: ‘This is a repeat offender. That makes the violation extra harmful and is reason to double the fine.”

The remaining €50,000 fine was incurred after the group were found to have charged unreasonable administration costs to inactive players. Players had funds deducted from their accounts in the form of “administration fees” after they had been inactive for a period of 180 days.

“The KSA assesses this as an unreasonable disadvantage for consumers,” as noted in the ruling. Since the fine had been issued, casino.com has now been taken offline for Dutch users.