The chair of the Dutch regulation organisation de Kansspelautoriteit (KSA), René Jansen, has made remarks hinting that the regulator is considering setting maximum loss limits across all operators.
These comments were made during a speech focusing on the duty of care that the nation and its regulators have for consumers.
He pointed out some recent failings in terms of player protection that have been highlighted on Dutch television: “a recent episode of the investigative journalist programme Pointer put the spotlight on operators that allowed a gambler to lose tens of thousands of euros without intervening or taking sufficient action.”
As it stands, players in the Netherlands are required to set their own limits, however, there are no caps on how low or high these can be.
He discussed other countries:“In Austria, players can deposit a maximum of €800 a week. In Germany, the maximum is €1,000 a month. In Norway, the maximum loss that players can incur is slightly less than €2,000 a month.”
“In Sweden, the operator has a statutory duty to initiate an investigation if a gambler exceeds the deposit limit of €930. These examples serve to illustrate that other avenues are open to the legislator.”
Although no specific actions were mentioned, Jansen stated that :
“It goes without saying that the KSA, as the regulator, has its own responsibility. That is why we will spend the next period investigating explicitly how our online gambling license holders are putting the main facets of their duty of care into practice.”
“We will not hesitate to intervene if there are evident signals that operators are not complying with the duty of care. This concerns both land-based and online operators. The KSA will make itself heard in the near future.”
