SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Kansspelautoriteit (KSA), the Netherlands Gambling Authority, has warned web hosting providers to ensure that they comply with the advertising laws of the Gambling Act (KOA Act), thereby protecting Dutch consumers from unlicensed online gambling.
The warning follows KSA imposing two ‘binding instructions’ on ISP provider Cloudflare to terminate its services hosting the affiliate websites of Nederlandscasinos.net and Onlinecasinosspelen.com.
The KSA notice stated: “Cloudflare is instructed to discontinue its services to these affiliates. Dutch players can participate in illegal games of chance via the relevant websites.”
Cloudflare was summoned with the order to terminate web services as the owners of the affiliate websites promoting unlicensed operators are unknown.
Established in October 2021, the laws of the Netherlands’ Gambling Act (KOA) prohibit websites, media, and affiliates from promoting unlicensed operators.
In July, the KSA was granted new powers to monitor Dutch advertising campaigns’ compliance with KOA laws. The authorization was granted by the Dutch Ministry of Justice, which authorized new amendments to be included in the KOA marketplace to monitor ‘untargeted advertising’.
Cloudflare has been warned that “services must be stopped no later than two weeks after the instructions have been sent. If this is not the case, the KSA can impose a subsequent sanction, for example, a penalty and/or fine”.
The warning to ISP providers follows a week of regulatory action, which saw KSA fine BetEnt, the Dutch market subsidiary of Entain Plc, €3m for inadequate AML controls which failed to meet the standards set by the Dutch Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) upholding the laws of Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Prevention Act (Wwft).
