The Netherlands has been sitting on a piece of ratified legislation regarding the legalization of online gambling for about a year and a half and has been slowly gathering speed on a real set of regulations for the industry in the country. It has been suggested that those with an interest and stakeholders have a November 13 deadline to comment to the European Commission on the planned regulations. The Commission will then determine the compatibility the Netherland’s Remote Gambling Act has with those of the European Union.
The Netherlands has the goal of starting its online gambling licensing application process by January with the detailed proposed regulations touching on the areas of records keeping, technical standards and reporting requirements. The comprehensive draft of the system rules also include measures for intervention that the licensed operators must apply should players exhibit problem issues regarding their gambling activities.
In an effort to do no harm the Remote Gambling Act requires operators to offer advice about the available treatments and resources for problem gambling after the operator provides specific data on the specific problem deeds. Possible at risk gamblers are advised to establish time and spending limits or take advantage of a self exclusion from gambling program. Interventions are to be made completely transparent with a ‘clear and comprehensive explanation’ of the actions taken by the operator with a particular focus on the age of the gambler and the number of other actions taken to remediate the issues.
The proposed rules also require licence holders to specifying the number of registered players, rejected actions, complaints, suspected integrity breaches and due diligence checks. Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) the Netherland’s regulator will be requesting that operators record detailed information on each customer including the total time and funds wagered across various verticals as well as other interventions in the past. Additionally, the proposed rules are said to stipulate that licensed operators refrain from presenting ‘games of chance under a name that is misleading.’
