Dutch regulator KSA fines Costa Rica-based Chestoption €3.08m for unlicensed gambling

The Netherlands’ Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) has fined Chestoption Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada €3.08m after finding that Dutch players could gamble on Vave.com, Vave-luck.com, and 67evav55.com without a local licence. For PSPs, the useful part is not the headline number but the enforcement pattern: the KSA is explicitly tying illegal gambling to payment methods, age controls, and recovery actions against unpaid penalties.

1. The KSA said Chestoption, which is based in Costa Rica, offered unlicensed gambling to Dutch players through Vave.com, Vave-luck.com, and 67evav55.com. None of the sites has a licence to offer gambling in the Netherlands, which is the basic line the regulator is enforcing here.
2. The regulator pointed to aggravating violations, including the lack of visible age verification. It also said players could pay with cryptocurrency and anonymous payment methods, which the KSA views as facilitating money laundering.
3. This was not the first action against Chestoption. On December 18, 2024, the regulator imposed a cease-and-desist order under penalty, and Chestoption failed to comply, triggering €840,000 in penalties. Because those penalties went unpaid, the KSA has now moved to recover them.
4. The KSA said it does not act only through administrative fines, but also by working with third parties, including payment service providers, hosting parties, banks, and large tech companies. In practice, that is the part high-risk operators and their providers should pay attention to: the regulator is describing a wider enforcement perimeter than just the operator entity itself.
5. In March, the KSA issued a record fine of €24m against Novatech for alleged repeated breaches of regulations, also for allowing Dutch players to gamble on Qbet.com and 55Bet.com without a Dutch licence. So the Chestoption case fits a broader Dutch enforcement posture, not a one-off.