Netherlands Regulator Calls for a European Strategy Against Illegal Betting Markets

Michel Groothuizen, president of the Netherlands Gambling Authority, the Kansspelautoriteit (KSA), says European countries need to work together against illegal betting. His point is simple enough: when the operators, infrastructure, and marketing channels are cross-border, a purely national response runs out of road fast.

1. Groothuizen made the case after the annual gambling debate in the Dutch Parliament, where he argued that the international reach of illegal operators makes a national-only response ineffective. In his words, the Netherlands is too small to take on the problem alone.
2. He said that for every euro lost by a Dutch player on betting, half ends up in the illegal market. Groothuizen described the scale and complexity of the problem as unprecedented for the Netherlands.
3. He also framed the black market as a global business big enough to exceed the GDP of almost any country, with the exceptions of the United States and China. That matters for PSPs and acquirers because the fight is no longer just about one regulator blocking one set of domains; it is about the infrastructure behind the money flow.
4. The Netherlands is still applying reforms to the Remote Gambling Act (KOA), inherited from previous governments. Earlier this month, State Secretary for Justice Claudia van Bruggen answered questions from nine MPs on topics that included player protection, a possible rise in the legal gambling age to 21, regulation of the sector, limits on the number of licences, the upcoming advertising ban, and the black market itself.
5. Groothuizen welcomed that the black market was on the parliamentary agenda and backed two concrete measures: a tool to block illegal websites and the study of fake identities as a way to identify unlicensed operators active in the Netherlands. He also pointed to social media as a growing channel for illegal operators, which has pushed Dutch authorities to hold major tech companies responsible for illegal gambling ads appearing on major platforms.

For high-risk payment providers, the practical takeaway is that Dutch enforcement is not being discussed as a purely domestic compliance issue anymore. The KSA is explicitly pushing the conversation toward cross-border coordination, website blocking, identity-fraud detection, and platform enforcement — all of which can affect who gets to process, where ads appear, and how quickly unlicensed traffic can be cut off.