TLDR KSA head Michel Groothuizen says the Netherlands cannot fight illegal gambling alone and wants EU-wide cooperation Half of every euro Dutch gamblers spend goes to illegal operators, costing the country over €500 million in lost tax Illegal sites have impersonated Dutch suicide prevention service 113.nl and urged banned gamblers to bypass their exclusion Dutch regulators have sued sites including Skyhills and blocked prediction market platform Polymarket Lawmakers remain split on an ad ban and raising the gambling age to 21
The head of the Dutch gambling regulator says the Netherlands cannot fight illegal gambling on its own. Michel Groothuizen leads the Kansspelautoriteit, known as the KSA. He wants the European Union to work together on the problem.
Groothuizen made his comments after an annual committee debate on games of chance. He said the scale of illegal gambling is hard to grasp. Half of every euro Dutch gamblers spend goes to illegal operators.
He said the global illegal gambling industry has a turnover bigger than the GDP of any country except the United States and China. That makes it too large for one country to handle. National rules alone are not enough, he said.
Illegal operators do not pay tax. Groothuizen said this has cost the Netherlands more than half a billion euros. He said these sites also target vulnerable people directly.
Some illegal sites have copied the look of 113.nl, a Dutch suicide prevention service. Others have reached out to people signed up for the Cruks self-exclusion system. These sites told banned gamblers to bypass their block and keep playing.
Weak Enforcement and Global Reach
Groothuizen said regulators have handed out fines worth tens of millions of euros. He said these penalties barely touch the profits illegal sites make. Many operators simply ignore the fines.
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