KSA chair denies Dutch regulator has been “sitting on its hands”

The Netherlands Gambling Authority’s (KSA) chair, Michel Groothuizen, has hit back at criticism of the regulator and denied it had been “sitting on its hands” over black market growth.

In a blog post on the KSA’s website, Groothuizen was responding to point made by Dutch MP Derk Boswijk during a debate led by the minister responsible for gambling, Teun Struycken.

Boswijk had asked what had been holding back the KSA from intervening against illegal gambling apps proliferating in the Netherlands for the past nine years.

In the meantime, the KSA announced it had helped pull 20 offending apps from app stores since the beginning of the year.

Groothuizen took umbrage with Boswijk’s line of questioning, asserting the KSA was doing the best job it could, given its regulatory powers were weaker than it desired.

While Struycken has pledged to give the KSA more powers in its fight against unlicensed sites, Groothuizen said the body is making significant strides in its efforts despite its limitations.

He said: “For the time being, we will have to make more impact based on our current (even more limited) powers. Because, to return to Mr Boswijk’s criticism, the KSA has not been sitting on its hands for nine years, but nine years is an incredibly long time in a landscape full of technological innovation.

“Where, when the market was opened, the majority of politicians were still very suspicious about the idea of ​​having a supervisory authority black out websites and thereby restricting the freedom of the internet, we now see that there is much more support for this.”

Groothuizen went on to note the KSA has embarked on a new project named ‘Undermining illegal infrastructure’ in which it is collaborating with multiple parties to push back against the black market.

Those parties include licensed operators and affiliate partners, as well as banks and payment providers.

Partnerships with other regulators across the globe were also cited by the KSA chair as key components of its mission.

He concluded: “We are trying to push illegal parties further and further into a corner, with existing and new tools in our toolbox, and to do more and more to make safe gaming a reality for everyone in the Netherlands.”

Earlier this week, the KSA slapped Techno Offshore with a €1.2m (£1m) fine for operating two sites in the market without a licence.

In January, the regulator also hit out at an unlicensed poker firm and Alimaniere for offering gambling despite not being licensed.