KSA awards just 10 initial licences in the Netherlands
Only one in every three of the original 29 licence applications has passed the regulator’s “high requirements”
Just 10 operators will receive a licence to operate in the Netherlands when the market opens on 1 October, Netherlands Gambling Authority (KSA) officials have confirmed.
A total of 29 applications were received by the KSA, which means the regulator cleared just one in every three.
The KSA is yet to reveal the identity of the successful operators.
The full list of licensees is expected to be published tomorrow, although EGR understands bet365 is likely to be one of the first international recipients, alongside the country’s land-based incumbents.
“High requirements are imposed on a licence, including in the field of addiction prevention and consumer protection and the KSA tests this rigorously,” said KSA chairman René Jansen.
This first tranche is widely expected to be formed by operators that were never on the receiving end of KSA sanctions under its controversial prioritisation criteria.
The criteria, which has been enforced for more than three years, allows the KSA to investigate online gambling operators which may be illegally targeting Dutch players if certain indicators are established.
These include the use of a .NL web domain name, Dutch symbols including tulips and windmills, offering customer support and websites in the Dutch language and the integration of the iDEAL payment method.
Using this criterion, the KSA has issued fines against a multitude of well-known international operators, which are subject to a “cooling-off” period of two years and eight months to coincide with the opening of the regulated market.
Under this cooling-off period, previously sanctioned operators are barred from entering the Dutch market until after they have maintained a period of inactivity where they do not actively target Dutch players.
This suggests the Netherlands could become a two-tier market, with unsanctioned ‘whiter-than-white’ operators gaining a crucial advantage over their formerly sanctioned competitors amid an unknown exclusivity period.
While not addressing this speculation directly, Jansen admitted that a “complete picture” of the Dutch market would only become visible by around July 2022, with some companies still to submit applications.
The KSA this month issued an ultimatum to unlicensed operators targeting the Dutch market to cease all online gaming operations by the go live date of 1 October.