Gaming regulators in the Netherlands have warned online gambling operators currently targeting Dutch citizens that the party is over. The Netherlands is planning to launch its regulated online gambling market early in 2015 and the Kansspelautoriteit (aka the Dutch Gaming Authority) is preparing to drop the hammer on sites that refuse to wait until licenses are issued.
Kansspelautoriteit chairman Jan Suyver said it is expecting to be granted new powers with which to combat non-approved operators and it won’t hesitate to exercise these powers when granted. Such powers could include the ability to block naughty websites at the Dutch border and to issue public warnings to Dutch citizens about gambling sites that fail to observe the rules.
Across the border in Belgium, gaming regulators are pleading with the country’s new government for extra medieval torture devices with which to inflict further agony on unapproved operators. The Belgian Gaming Commission (BGC) emphasized the urgency behind this request in an open letter to members of Belgium’s newly elected coalition government, noting that the number of Belgian gamblers who accessed online betting sites in the first five months of the year was nearly triple the 211k who’d patronized the country’s brick-and-mortar casinos over the same period.
The BGC wants to impose extra ‘know your customer’ requirements on gambling sites to screen out underage gamblers as well as customers dealing with bankruptcy and other debt collection issues. The BGC also wants to bring social gaming under the same regulatory scrutiny as its real-money gambling counterpart. Finally, the BGC wants more money and staff with which to go after operators not possessing a BGC-issued license as well as those traitorous Belgians who dare gamble with such sites.
