Dutch Regulator Calls for EU Action Against Illegal Gambling

Kansspelautoriteit chair Michel Groothuizen has called for a Europe-wide response to illegal online gambling, arguing that national regulators do not have enough reach to disrupt operators built around offshore companies, international payments and global technology platforms.

In a September 11 opinion piece following the Dutch parliament’s annual gambling debate, Groothuizen welcomed political support for stronger domestic enforcement. He said the discussion gave too little attention to the cross-border structure that allows unlicensed operators to remain accessible after national penalties are imposed.

Groothuizen said half of the money wagered by Dutch players now flows to the illegal market. He estimated that the Netherlands loses more than €500 million in tax revenue each year and warned that some unlicensed sites actively target people registered with Cruks, the country’s gambling self-exclusion system.

National Enforcement Meets a Cross-Border Market

Dutch lawmakers discussed giving the KSA authority to block illegal gambling websites. The state secretary also said the government would examine whether regulators should be able to use false identities when investigating unlicensed operators.

Those measures would add to an enforcement strategy that increasingly targets the services around illegal sites. The KSA has worked to reduce their visibility in search and on social media, press technology companies to remove promotions and make it harder for operators to process deposits and withdrawals.

The regulator can issue penalties worth tens of millions of euros, but Groothuizen said collection is often difficult. Operators can shift between legal entities, change domains and establish companies in jurisdictions where Dutch orders carry little practical force.

That leaves the KSA trying to disrupt access rather than relying only on action against the company named behind a site. Payment providers, hosting services, advertisers, search engines and social platforms can each become pressure points, but many of those businesses operate well beyond the Netherlands.

The Push Moves to Europe

Groothuizen argues that European coordination is needed to create enough leverage over the financial and technology companies supporting the unlicensed market. A shared response could also limit the ability of an operator removed in one country to continue using the same infrastructure to target players elsewhere.

No new EU enforcement body or union-wide crackdown was announced with his comments. The intervention is a policy push aimed at convincing Dutch lawmakers and the government to treat illegal gambling as an international enforcement problem rather than a collection of separate national cases.

The call came two days after the Financial Action Task Force published a warning based on work across more than 80 jurisdictions. FATF identified illegal gambling as one of the sector’s most significant financial-crime risks and said unlicensed markets rival or exceed legal gambling activity in many countries.

FATF also pointed to the use of gambling platforms to move money with little or no meaningful play, break transactions into smaller amounts and transfer funds across online, virtual-asset and traditional payment systems. The group urged stronger oversight and international cooperation as gambling becomes more connected to the wider digital economy.

The KSA’s position reflects the core enforcement gap. Legal gambling remains licensed and supervised country by country, while the companies, payments and promotional channels used by illegal operators are often spread across several jurisdictions. Groothuizen’s proposal is that Europe match that structure with enforcement that can operate across the same borders.