Dutch justice minister rows back on ‘bad actor’ provisions

Dutch Justice Minister Sander Dekker appears to have rowed back a little from his statements earlier this year that permanent disqualification from obtaining a Dutch online gambling licence of companies that have been penalised by regulator Kansspelautoriteit may be counter-productive for the nascent online gambling market in the Netherlands, once legislation has been implemented.

This week, addressing the Permanent Committee for Justice and Security, the minister returned to the subject, commenting again that a permanent ban on sanctioned operators would be disproportionate, but an approach that involved a time-defined ban would be acceptable.

The minister did not go into the detail of how long such a ban might be, or on what grounds it would be applied.

After almost a decade of delays and debate, the Dutch government’s Remote Gambling Bill, which has been bogged down in the Upper House of parliament for months, appears to be moving again, with input invited during a consultative period which ends November 6.

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