Dutch online gambling legalisation delayed (again)

The years of Dutch legislative dithering on the legalisation of online gambling in the Netherlands is probably matched only by their counterparts in South Africa, who have similarly spent inordinate amounts of time contemplating legalisation without much progress.

Hopefully in the case of the Netherlands the delays will, unlike South Africa where the genre has now been banned, have a positive outcome….but not for at least another year.

The news that it will take yet another year to get Dutch i-gaming off the ground broke this week when a communications executive with the Dutch regulator Kansspelautoriteit said that several parliamentary postponements were the root cause of delays in the introduction of a licensing and regulatory regime.

Martijn van de Koolwijk said: “Consideration of the bill has been postponed three times. Moreover, the law must be approved by both chambers and then the subordinate legislation must still be worked out.”

That would be followed by further delays of around six months as applicants for licensing were vetted and documentation issued, he added.

The Kansspelautoriteit indicated last year that there was keen interest among operators for a Dutch licence, with over 200 potential applicants contacting the regulator (see previous reports).

In the meantime the regulator continues to enforce actions against impatient operators who have been accessing Dutch punters in the absence of official licensing.

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