ONE-ON-ONE
Regulation & reality in the Netherlands MICHEL GROOTHUIZEN , CHAIR OF KSA, THE NETHERLANDS REGULATOR, TALKED TO EDITOR-IN CHIEF SIMON PLANZER ABOUT GAME-CHANGING TECHNOLOGIES, ADVERTISING BANS, TAX AND HIS CONCERNS ABOUT THE BLACK MARKET. Introduction Having liberalized to great acclaim a few short years ago, Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) recently went public with a statement that channelization rates had fallen below 50 percent. We asked its chair how the country got here and his hopes to turn the tide.
In 2010, our picture of online gambling was of people sitting behind a desk or at their living room table, but always using a computer. What we now know is that the smartphone has become the dominant way to gamble online. That was a real game changer that we did not really foresee and honestly, when you speak with Dutch politicians, even now, they do not always realize that within three clicks on your smartphone, you can play every game you want. For those who do not gamble themselves, they have no idea that that’s the reality. So, that makes framing a law somewhat difficult. SP: Did that mean they were surprised by how the market developed? MG: I think you could say that. After the market opened up it attracted commercial companies to enter the competitive arena, and everyone wanted to win as big a market share as possible. Quite understandable. But the consequence of that struggle was that licensees ran very aggressive and widespread advertising
Simon Planzer: When the Dutch regulated market opened five years ago, there were very high expectations from various stakeholders, including the industry. The Dutch regulation was widely welcomed and applauded for being progressive and introducing a liberal licensing system. You were not in post at that time, but can you describe the expectations of the market and how the KSA saw it back then? Michel Groothuizen: I was not with KSA, but coincidentally, a decade earlier, in around 2010, I was the Policy Director in the Ministry of Justice here in the Netherlands. There I was responsible for the gambling law that was already being written. Even at that time, people had been working on it for five or six years. The process of creating the law was a very long one and that had some specific consequences. At the start of the process, while the internet was more or less fully developed, the smartphone was not and so the impact of the smartphone was not taken into account in the law.
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IMGL MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2025
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