Internet-based gambling is a field of enormous growth. Many people keep investing in this field and adopting new technologies. Since the online gambling market has expanded significantly over the past couple of years, it was a matter of time when the online gaming legislation for the Netherlands would be approved.
This important decision was made at the beginning of the year when the Dutch Senate voted in favor of legalizing online gambling. They’ve waited for a long time for the internet gambling regulation, and it finally came into force a few days ago.
The Netherlands enters the World of Online Gambling
February 19th was an important date for the Netherlands because it’s the beginning of regulated online-based gambling in this country, located in Northwestern Europe. From the moment Senate decided that online gambling should be legal, all foreign and Dutch companies are able to apply for online gambling licenses.
Financieele Dagblad, a daily Dutch newspaper about business and financial matters, reported that there are over 300 companies interested in opening a gambling website. Fifty of them were eagerly waiting for the Netherlands to enter the world of online gambling so that they can apply for and obtain a gambling license.
Back in 2016, a lower house made a decision to allow third parties to offer online gambling within the Netherlands. It was then expected for the legalization to happen in early 2018, but there were obviously some issues that needed to be solved. Holland Casino is the only state-regulated casino in the Netherlands so far, but the fact is that many international casino operators were targeting Dutch players, disregarding the ban.
Even though two Christian parties in the ruling coalition didn’t vote for the legislation, the majority outvoted them. The reason the opponents are against the legalizing of online gambling is that they’re afraid that it will lead to increased gambling addictions. This is also the case in many other countries where the main argument for voting against the legislation is the safety of players and gambling addiction.
Regardless of these negative opinions toward gambling, the Dutch Senate officially adopted the Remote Gambling Bill. The regulated online gambling market in the Netherlands will probably kick off in late 2020 or early 2021. Despite those standing against the regulation, it is expected this bill will help create a safer gaming environment offering more protection for the players.
Ways to restrain Illegal Gambling
Any sort of ignoring the bans and the rules will be penalized, now that the Senate has adopted 3 additional notions for ensuring the safety of their players.
Their first notion will be shutting down illegal operators for 2 years due to ignoring the ban and targeting Dutch players. The second notion is to consider returning IP and Domain Name System blocking after the evaluation of the enacted bill. The third notion involves encouraging the government to explore how desirable it is to completely ban gambling advertisement.
All in all, the future of Netherlands gambling will be bright but they have a lot of work to do in order to keep their players safe and to protect them from scams and illegal gambling.
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