How Online Gambling Sites in the Netherlands Are Trying to Stretch New Advertising Rules

With recent changes to how the Dutch regulate online gaming, you might wonder where it is possible to find the best online gambling sites in the Netherlands. The good news is that these sites are still accessible to customers. We’ll explain how advertising laws are affecting gaming now and what customers should know.

In 2021, a law made Dutch online gambling legal. That is great news for those in the Netherlands who wish to gamble with convenience from home. However, some other big changes have occurred in the country’s gambling industry since then, too. We will examine the advertising law that went into effect on July 1, 2023, and give a broader overview of the Dutch gambling scene. Use the links below to find the information you are looking for immediately. Meanwhile, find our list of best Dutch online gambling sites here.

• Best Gambling Sites in Netherlands
• How Social Gambling and Skill Games Differ
• Dutch Online Gambling Ad Ban Explained
• Requirements for Online Gambling Sites in the Netherlands

Best Gambling Sites in Netherlands

As mentioned above, we have already compiled a list of some of the Netherlands’ best gambling sites on offer. There are many available which is great news for fans of online casino games, online sports betting and more. Let’s take a further look at what types of games you can find online in the Netherlands and who regulates them.

Casinos, Slots, Table Games

Casinos, including slot machines and table games like poker, roulette and blackjack, are legal in the Netherlands. They are regulated (along with most of Dutch online gambling) by the Netherlands Gambling Authority or “Ksa”, which is known as the Kansspelautoriteit in Dutch. Casino games, slots, poker and bingo are all managed by the Ksa and are legally available in both land-based and digital forms. Furthermore, there is no limit on how many slot machines may be licensed across the Netherlands, which is a major difference to some other European countries like Norway. This is good news for Dutch slots fans.

Betting

All forms of betting, including sports betting, horse racing and fantasy league betting, are available legally in the Netherlands. These are also regulated by the Ksa. Most forms of betting can be found online and offline, with the exception of fantasy betting, which you will only find on online gambling sites in the Netherlands. Fantasy betting is only available on digital platforms in the Netherlands. This is not because fantasy betting is illegal; it is simply not available at the time of writing.

Lottery

If you are a lotto fan, you can buy tickets in the Netherlands. Unfortunately, lotto is only available at brick-and-mortar ticket sellers. It is prohibited online, even on the Netherlands’ best gambling sites.

How Social Gambling and Skill Games Differ

There is another category to gambling in the Netherlands that we can explain. This is the category of social gambling, in other words games that are played for fun but with no prize money involved. This is also allowed by law, but is not regulated by the Ksa, unlike other forms of gambling. Instead, social gambling is managed by the Dutch Authority for Consumers & Markets. Similarly, skills-based games that do not have an element of chance involved are also managed by the same authority.

Dutch Online Gambling Ad Ban Explained

With the introduction of online gambling sites in the Netherlands in 2021, the country made a bold decision to open up its gaming landscape. The decision was made for several reasons. For one, gambling was already legal in the Netherlands, so it was not a huge leap to offer online options and regulation. The government may have also felt the pressure of neighboring countries that already offered robust online gaming options, since residents could fairly easily go onto those platforms.

The COVID-19 pandemic was also a factor to consider. In 2020, many non-essential businesses had to close for periods of time to help slow the spread of the virus. Therefore the gaming industry suffered, and fans of betting turned to digital options. It makes sense then that the Netherlands chose to pass a law on online gambling in 2021. The law went into effect on April 1 of that year and is known as the Remote Gambling Act.

The Netherlands already had several laws on the books regarding gambling and money laundering. The Remote Gambling Act had to reflect the laws that were already apparent. It also has three main points within it. For one, companies must have a license from the Ksa in order to offer remote gambling in the Netherlands. Second, unlicensed platforms may not promote their services in the country. Third, it is illegal to bet on unlicensed platforms.

With these factors in place, the Dutch government hoped that its residents would stick to licensed, legal services to place their bets and participate in online casino games. Platforms began to get licenses six months after the bill was passed and thus, there are now at least 25 licensed online gambling sites in the Netherlands available for bettors.

Requirements for Online Gambling Sites in the Netherlands

By law, there are several requirements that a gambling platform must fulfill in order to successfully apply for a license to operate in the country. These are outlined below.

• The company must be publicly traded within the European Economic Area.
• The company’s electronic infrastructure for managing its gaming platform(s) must be physically based within the EEA.
• The company must have a further database within the Netherlands, which is used to oversee the Dutch platform.
• The company is responsible for helping in the prevention of problem gambling. While this is common in many new gaming laws around the world, the way in which different governments manage it varies. In the case of the Netherlands, it means that the gaming platform must take steps to educate its players on gambling risks. They also must offer players a way of checking in on their own playing habits (i.e. how much money has been bet in what period of time). The sites are also responsible for flagging potentially problematic behavior and intervening if appropriate.
• Connected to the above point, each company must have its own representative for the Netherlands who deals exclusively with the problem of gambling addiction.
• Untargeted advertising is not allowed for these companies (we explain more about this below).
• The Netherlands has its own exclusion registry. This is different to some other countries’ systems in that it is centrally operated, meaning that when a player is registered via one site, all sites must also put the same player on their exclusion list for a period of at least six months.

The Ban on Online Gambling Advertising and What It Means for Players

The Netherlands recently introduced a ban on what it refers to as “untargeted” online gambling advertising. The ban came about because in the two years since online gambling was legalized in the country and the first licenses were distributed, there was an influx of gambling ads online and on the television. It annoyed people enough the lawmakers got involved. Of course, the issue was not just that there were too many ads, but that these might lead to problematic gambling behavior or the influencing of vulnerable groups like minors.

The result has been called a ban on online gambling advertising, however online gambling sites may still advertise, but only within extremely strict parameters. As has been seen with some recent rulings against advertisers who may have defied the rules, it might be impossible, in reality, for these companies to create ads that do not defy the bans. So one could say it is a de facto ban.

However, Dutch politicians have said that they do not want all advertising for these sites to disappear. There is an important reason that some ads are needed. This is because legal sites still need to show themselves to the public, so that gamers know which sites are licensed and which are not. Since legal gambling is relatively new, and unlicensed platforms still persist in trying to offer services in the Netherlands, there is still a real risk of bettors going to illegal sites.

The fear is that they may do this unknowingly, without adequate education or warning. Therefore a licensed online gambling site sharing an ad can be a helpful thing. The question is, how can these sites do so without breaking the rules of the current advertising law?

This is where the idea of targeted vs. untargeted advertising comes in. Currently, these platforms may advertise in the following ways: through social media and the internet, via direct mail ads, on TV-on-Demand and via targeting advertising. All of these still must meet certain conditions.

The conditions are essentially that ads cannot be shown to people under the age of 24 and to other vulnerable groups. Lawmakers seem to understand that this is difficult to prevent entirely, so another stipulation is that 95% of ads need to be shown to people over that age limit. Finally, anyone who sees such an ad must be able to exit it and opt out of further online gambling ads.

What This Means for Gambling Platforms

The reality is that gambling platforms must work much harder now to get their ads to customers in a way that doesn’t break the law. The main way of doing this is to create targeted ad campaigns which strictly stipulate the age of the audience that receives the ads. However, you can understand from reason the rules of the advertising ban how difficult it may be to completely enforce it.

That being said, some platforms have recently come under fire for breaking the rules. In the case of one advertiser, the company ran a giveaway for a t-shirt which featured the company logo. The Ksa said this broke the rules since merchandise could be worn and seen in a public space. It is therefore impossible to prevent a minor from seeing it. Apparently then, all giveaways of branded merchandise are not allowed under the new ban.

The ban gets a little bit more confusing when it comes to the idea of “neutral expression” in advertising. Two sites were recently called out for breaking the neutral expression rule, by using their own slogans in an ad, for example. Another site broke the rule by using a call to action in an ad to get users to try its app. The Ksa has said that both of these are not allowed since they encourage users to use these products, rather than remaining neutral.

We agree, it is confusing! Isn’t the very essence of an ad that it is not neutral, since it is trying to advertise a certain product or topic? However, we did not make these rules and have no control over them, so we can only report on how they are being handled at the moment. Since this legislation is new, it makes sense that the Dutch authorities are still working out the kinks of how it is managed, and platforms are also learning where the limits are.

The Effect on Players

This is the other part of the equation that remains to be seen. At the moment, there is no real discernible downside for players. The only problem may be for players who have trouble distinguishing between a licensed site and an unlicensed one; for them, seeing these ads might be useful.

The only effect we can foresee in the long term is if online betting platforms get fed up with the Dutch law and choose to remove themselves from the industry there. It does not seem likely to happen any time soon, but of course we will update you as more information becomes available.