Dutch gambling authority updates catalogue of fines

The official announcement from the KSA states that the fine for gambling violations can now amount to up to four million euros.

In future, each violation will be assigned to a specific category according to its severity, which will be sanctioned differently:

• Category 1: up to €500 fine
• Category 2: up to €10,000 fine
• Category 3: up to €200,000 fine
• Category 4: up to €1,000,000 fine
• Category 5: up to €4,000,000 fine

The KSA has made it clear that fines can be added up for multiple offenses. For example, it is conceivable that minor offenses in a low category could add up to a large fine.

In addition, higher fines are planned for particularly large companies and gambling firms that commit repeated misconduct. In this case, a surcharge of up to 50% may be levied on the amounts mentioned.

Netherlands wants to reform gambling extensively

Teun Struycken, State Secretary for Legal Protection, announced at the end of last year that he wanted to further develop gambling regulation in 2025. The focus is on the future of stationary gambling, combined with the discussion of whether a land-based casino monopoly is still appropriate.

Online gambling will also be put to the test. Struycken sees player protection as suboptimal due to incorrect incentives, but he has not yet specifically addressed the problems or a potential solution.

He only announced a newly developed concept for March 2025. It therefore seems unclear whether the recently published catalog of fines is part of the announced changes or represents an independent measure by the KSA.

KSA makes sanctions public

On the KSA website, the authority makes all imposed sanctions public [page in Dutch] in order to provide transparent information about the decisions. However, it seems conceivable that this is also intended to have a deterrent effect.

It will be interesting to see what new entries will be added in the coming weeks and months and whether the penalties will be even higher than in the past.