Dutch Gambling Regulator Fines Casino.com with €450.000

Kansspelautoriteit (KSA), Dutch online gambling regulatory body, issued another six-figure penalty to an operator that offered Dutch gamblers services without having a license.

On Tuesday, KSA announced to the public that it had to issue a €450k fine to Onisac Ltd, which operates the Casino.com platform.

This operator, that has headquarters in Gibraltar, offered its online games to gamblers from the Netherlands through its site…

…and by doing so, violated strict laws.

Details on the Penalty

Such a huge penalty had to be issued because €200k was imposed due to the site offering online games of chance without the permission of the Dutch regulatory body…

…while an additional €200k imposed because Onisac was already penalized back in 2013 because of similar reasons.

The remaining €50k penalty was imposed due to the site charging its customers, as KSA said, “unreasonable istration costs.”

It includes a 5% monthly istration fee if a customer’s was inactive for over 180 days, which actually ranged from a minimum of €15 to a maximum of €500 and continued until the customer’s was fully drained of funds.

Onisac Wants to Reverse the Fine

The officials from Onisac Ltd said that they want to go to court and reverse the Dutch fine. But, since they already went through the same procedure and lost, they probably have no chance this time either.

KSA said to the press that Casino.com has completely stopped offering its services to the Dutch customers at the moment…

…but it would come as no surprise if the operator, after some time, continues to do the same thing.

Although the Dutch regulatory body plans on launching a newly liberalized market, so Onisac might risk completely losing the right to apply for the license in the Netherlands.

Casumo Also Penalized

Kansspelautoriteit issued a €310,000 fine to online gaming operator, Casumo.

This Malta-based operator has been penalized for illegally targeting consumers from the Netherlands as its gambling website contained various elements that actually suggested they were targeting Dutch players.

That includes offering iDeal as the payment option for placing wagers, while a live chat on Casumo’s website was offering the option to provide answers to players in the Dutch language as well.

KSA Increased Penalties

Actually, the Dutch regulatory body and gambling authority officially announced at the beginning of March…

…that all online gambling operators offering their services to Dutch gamblers without permission will have to face the new increased financial penalties.

By doing so, KSA is actually preparing the grounds for the new liberalized online market, so it comes as no surprise that more and more companies are having to face huge penalties.

Source:

“Dutch regulator fines Casino.com €450k for online gambling antics”, Steven Stradbrooke, calvinayre.com, April 9, 2019.