It has been three years since the Dutch government passed the Remote Gambling Act into law, a legislation that sought to improve the gambling sector. As per Dutch law, the Remote Gambling Act must be reviewed three years after coming into force.
Well, the Dutch government has just published the results of the review, and simply put, they are not good.
According to the official report, the overall conclusion of the review is that the results are not satisfactory. More specifically, the Remote Gambling Act didn’t manage to create a safe and sustainable market in line with the original aims of the legislation.
This is despite recent legal changes, such as stricter advertising regulations, which cannot be taken into account given that they were implemented way too late in the review process.
The biggest concern of the review, however, is responsible gambling, where the review points out that the current measures are simply not effective in improving the market and preventing young individuals from gambling.
Moreover, the government concludes that the Act has not yet “contributed to such a responsible and verifiable gambling offer”, highlighting that the current implementation practice can only contribute to greater danger, particularly in younger players.
Some of the more specific points of failure from the review include the underutilization of gambling addiction prevention representatives, stating that crucial information on how to prevent gambling addiction is “insufficient”, and not properly communicated to players.
Furthermore, the review also attacked spending limits, stressing that the way that they are used simply “cannot be seen as a protective measure.” Additionally, the review criticized steps around duty of care, commenting that operators are not eligible to oversee this due to their biases and commercial interests.
However, it is not all bad.
Certain measures taken specifically to prevent gambling addiction were seen as “partially successful.” This includes the national self-exclusion scheme, Cruks, and the Addiction Prevention Fund (VPF). However, even these positives require further improvements, as the government sees them as just “partially sufficient”.
In addition, the government report states that another positive is the measures regarding personal data protection that were rated as “good”, and are performing well.
