Dutch gambling watchdog issues record fine

The Dutch gambling regulator has issued its largest-ever penalty, fining Novatech almost €25 million for running the Qbet.com and 55Bet.com sites in the Netherlands without a licence. According to DutchNews.nl, the Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) said Dutch users could open accounts and deposit money with no meaningful barriers, including no age verification.

The regulator highlighted payment methods as a central aggravating factor. The sites accepted cryptocurrencies and other anonymous options that are commonly used to obscure the origin of funds, the KSA said, raising money-laundering concerns and pushing the fine higher. Dutch law allows penalties of up to 10% of annual turnover; the KSA did not publish Novatech’s turnover figure but framed the amount as proportionate to the risks and scale of access.

A second operator, Fortaprime, was fined almost €1.8 million for targeting Dutch customers via a “string of unlicensed websites,” DutchNews.nl reports. The KSA has been asked what enforcement tools it has to ensure foreign operators actually pay—an awkward question for a regime that can write large invoices but may have limited leverage over companies outside Dutch jurisdiction.

The fines land in a market the Netherlands legalised only in 2021, arguing that bringing online gambling into a licensed framework would make it easier to steer players away from offshore sites and provide addiction support. The reported numbers suggest the opposite dynamic is hardening: the KSA estimates 53% of spending still goes to illegal sites, even though 94% of gamblers use licensed providers. That implies a small slice of users—heavy spenders—are supplying most of the revenue to unlicensed operators, the segment most likely to be sensitive to friction such as deposit limits, identity checks and advertising bans.

The Dutch cabinet has responded by tightening the legal channel: raising the minimum age for “risky” games to 21, imposing limits on how much people can gamble on each licensed site, and further restricting advertising. Over 100,000 people have also signed up to a self-exclusion register that blocks them from the legal market. Each of those measures increases compliance costs and reduces the ability of licensed firms to compete on convenience—while unlicensed sites can keep onboarding customers with fewer checks and fewer constraints.

The result is a regulated market that can be made safer only by becoming less attractive. If the KSA’s own estimate is correct, the country is already running two parallel systems: a heavily monitored legal circuit with rising barriers, and a high-volume illicit circuit that concentrates the most lucrative customers.

Novatech’s websites were cited for lacking age verification. The Dutch state’s largest ever gambling fine was issued to an operator the regulator says Dutch users could access in minutes.