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SP : You mentioned the game changing role, of the smartphone and mobile devices in general. Are there aspects that are missing in that regard, in the Dutch primary law or secondary law today? MG: I think so, yes. For instance, the law came into force at a point in time when freedom of the internet was considered and appreciated very highly, perhaps naively. Since then, whether as a result of child pornography or the distribution of terrorist materials, our views have changed. This has had one very practical result. If I look at my Danish or French colleagues, they have been able to act quickly to take down hundreds of illegal sites. In Holland, while it’s not impossible, it can take us nearly a year, and as a consequence, it’s completely valueless for us. It has no practical use. SP There are two dimensions to the challenge of creating and sustaining a well-managed regulated gambling market. The first gets the headlines and that is tackling the black market. But the second is all too often forgotten and that is to create a licensed market that is attractive to operators and their customers. Do you agree? And if you do, could you comment on the tax increase that was agreed by Dutch politicians against the express recommendations of the KSA. MG: Yes, this is something that’s really worrying us. The revenue from gambling tax was so tremendous that the civil servants in the Ministry of Finance thought, it’s an easy catch. They assumed, with a sector that was growing so much with massive profits, that it would be easy to get a bit more. That’s the reason that they proposed a tax hike from around 30 percent to almost 38 percent. I’m really afraid that for many operators, especially the land-based sector which was already working at marginal profitability, this will be the final blow for many of them. Already we see that many are just disappearing: around 20 percent of local gambling outlets have closed down. For the online sector, it’s different. Their cost structure is not the same, and they will manage to survive. But, the difference
campaigns. Wherever you were in the Netherlands, whether it was at a bus stop or on television or on social media there was blanket advertising for gambling and gambling companies. That was something new for the Netherlands, something we were not used to. It was probably the biggest explosion of advertising for a single sector that we have seen. Everyone from young children to old people were confronted with it, and that completely changed the perception of what was going on. It created a backlash in the media and in among the public, and especially in the minds of politicians and policy makers. They said, this is out of control, we have to stop it. So, the atmosphere that was initially so positive in the Netherlands towards the regulated market has turned into the situation where Dutch politics is today. SP: Looking back, it’s clear to see that heavy advertising to which the population at large is suddenly exposed would have a negative impact. Do you see other factors that have also affected the atmosphere? MG : Indeed, at the same time there was a very big growth in market. If I can give you some approximate figures, five years ago the total revenue from gambling tax was about €400 million and within five years, that figure reached €1 billion. So it more than doubled in just a few years. And the massive growth of the industry was only in the online sector: land-based casinos are static or in decline in the Netherlands. This is not so surprising. Other industries have been affected by the internet and smartphones: we have fewer sex shops, fewer cinemas. Of course, during Covid all land-based establishments were closed and people had to go online if they wanted to gamble. They also had a lot of time on their hands and this drove the online gambling market. We expected that land-based casinos would bounce back after Covid and up to a certain level that happened, but they never recovered to their former levels. Habits had changed and we have seen this in many areas but the effect was that not only did online gambling grow it also displaced the land-based sector in a kind of cannibalization effect.
IMGL MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2025
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