The Netherlands Gambling Authority (Ksa) has for the first time imposed a fine of €734,000 on one of its licensees because the company failed to adequately protect young adults against excessive gambling and gambling addiction.

Gambling companies have a duty of care and must protect players as much as possible against excessive gambling and gambling addiction. According to the Ksa, the provider in question has not sufficiently complied with this duty of care and will be fined for this.

The Ksa launched an investigation after receiving signals about large losses suffered by young adults. In this investigation, a selection of 10 of the player files with the largest losses was examined at the provider, with violations being found in all files. These involved young adult players (18 to 23 years old) who gambled away tens of thousands of euros in often a relatively short period of time.

Michel Groothuizen, chairman of the board of the Ksa: ‘We have a licensed gambling market based on the idea that anyone who wants to gamble can do so safely. That is why providers have a duty of care towards their players and must respond adequately to excessive gambling.

Large losses are an important signal of this. We have intensified our supervision of the online duty of care and we take tough action against violations such as those we find here, because we really do not want to see providers continue to fail in their duty of care, especially for vulnerable young players.’

Normally, the Ksa also publishes the name of the license holder, because this warns consumers about the behavior of the provider and because it shows how important the duty of care is. We are not doing this in this message, because the party in question has requested an interim injunction from the court to prevent publication.

The judge has ruled that the question of whether the fine was rightly imposed is too complicated to answer now. Until the Ksa has answered that question in the objection, the name of the provider may not actually be mentioned, as far as the judge is concerned. If it turns out at a later point in the legal procedure that this information may be made public, the Ksa will immediately mention the name of the party.