KSA asks Dutch government to extend controversial ‘mystery shopper’ powers
Regulator doubles down on position despite previous Videoslots backlash with urgent legislative amendment
The Netherlands Gambling Authority (KSA) has asked the government to urgently wave through new ‘mystery shopper’ legislation to help the regulator better police the online sector.
In a letter sent to Minister for Legal Protection Franc Weerwind, the KSA stressed the importance of greenlighting additional mystery shopper powers ahead of the evaluation of the Remote Gambling Act next year.
The regulator has requested the government to extend its powers to be able to use false identities to evaluate whether online operators are complying with regulations.
The KSA said these false identities could be created and provided by the National Office for Identity Data, and permitted only for specific purposes.
The regulator said the legislation needed updating to allow it to monitor operators more effectively and efficiently.
The KSA said the mystery shopper legislation was needed to allow the regulator to remain incognito from operators that may be breaching regulations.
The call for a legal transition to allow the KSA to pursue operators in this manner comes after it caused furore around its recent fine handed to Videoslots.
Videoslots, which had been in the process of applying for a Dutch online gaming licence at the time, was hit by a €9.9m penalty from the KSA for offering gambling without a licence.
The KSA used so-called mystery shopping techniques to create an account with a Dutch address, log in, make deposits and play games of chance after selecting Germany at the registration stage.
Videoslots strongly contests the investigation, claiming the regulator had acted unlawfully by gaining unauthorised access to its site, and argued that it had not violated any regulations. The operator is appealing the decision.
Elsewhere, the KSA also put forward a second urgent change to legislation to allow it to use customer data to inform policymaking decisions.
Currently, Dutch operators store customer data in an in-house database, with the KSA able to access the data for supervision and enforcement purposes.