A definitive set of governing legislation is recently published for the Netherland's Remote Gambling Act. This legislation has been forwarded to the European Commission for review. After receiving responses from interested stakeholders and parties, the European Commission will decide in November whether the proposed gambling legislation is in accordance with EU law.
Secondary legislation
On 20 August, the Dutch government published the latest version of the Remote Gambling Decree and the Remote Gambling Regulation: secondary legislation that contains information on the implementation and further interpretation of the Act. The Decree includes provisions on applying for licences, the game system of licence holders, preventing money laundering and match-fixing, advertising, the prevention of gambling addiction, and the protection of data.
The recently published Regulation provides further details on these provisions.
Earlier versions of the Decree and Regulation
An earlier version of the Decree was published in March 2020, and an earlier version of the Regulation in September 2019. In comparison to the earlier Decree, the recent version contains no major changes. The Regulation, however, has undergone significant changes, including:
Licence fee: the application for a licence is now EUR 48,000 instead of EUR 45,000.
License holder: when examining the reliability of a license holder and key personnel, the regulator will now take foreign criminal records into account.
Live casino games: a provision for live casino games has been included, live casino games must be secured against manipulation and unauthorised access. Technical-based casino games must now deploy a reliable random number generator without manipulation.
Gambling assets: a new provision exists for independent foundations that can be used to manage player assets. The provision includes rules regarding a foundation's organisation, internal supervision and the management and separation of player assets.
Retention period: the period for retaining (personal) data has been reduced to three years from five years.
Sports betting:
- A list of sports competitions (i.e. a "white list") is included for which no prior analysis is necessary to determine the risk of match-fixing.
- A"black list" is also included in the Regulation, which specifies sports matches or events during sports matches for which no bet can be offered due to an unacceptable risk of match-fixing. Events during sports matches include negative incidents, such as the application of yellow cards in football, or events that have no influence on the result of a match.
Advertising:
- Gambling operators will be restricted from advertising their gambling services from 6 am to 9 pm.
- License holders must refrain from using misleading names, particularly for licensed games.
- Advertising with individual professional athletes or teams is prohibited. It is also prohibited to use other role models who are younger than 25 years of age or have a substantial influence on minors or young adults (i.e. people younger than 25 years).
- Sponsoring (e.g. shirt sponsoring) of individual professional athletes or teams is allowed, but it is still prohibited to sponsor role models who are younger than 25 years or have a substantial influence on minors or young adults. Role model sponsoring could include the display of the logo of the license holder or the games of chance on a T-shirt worn by the individual.
Guidelines: the Regulation includes comprehensive guidelines on customer-care duties, technical standards, reporting and record-holding requirements.
Entry into force
The Dutch government expects limited delays in the passage of the legislative package and it entry into force by 1 March 2021, the date online gambling licences can likely be applied for.
CMS will keep you informed of all developments. For more information on the Remote Gambling Act and regulations surrounding gaming in the Netherlands, contact your regular CMS advisor or local CMS experts.
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