KSA moves against Dutch casinos and arcades after Cruks exclusion checks fail in media sting

The Dutch gambling regulator, Kansspelautoriteit (KSA), says it is taking action against several land-based casinos and arcades after a PowNed investigation showed excluded players getting in by using other people’s identity documents. For PSPs and casino operators, the point is simple: in the Netherlands, Cruks checks are mandatory, but the access-control problem is still a human one.

1. PowCrime, a new online true-crime video platform launched by the public broadcasting association PowNed, showed land-based venues accepting players who had self-excluded through Cruks, the Netherlands’ exclusion register. The segment showed access being granted with someone else’s identity documents, which is exactly the kind of basic control failure regulators notice.
2. The KSA called the findings a “serious signal” about the risk of fraud in land-based casino admissions. It said it had “taken note of the investigation by PowNed, which shows that people registered in Cruks can still gain entry to gaming halls and casinos through fraud”, and added that “access control at land-based casinos is a manual process, and that fraud cannot always be ruled out.”
3. All operators, both land-based and online, are required to connect to Cruks and block access to players registered for exclusion. The KSA said it is taking action against the arcades and casinos mentioned in the broadcast, and stressed that arcades and casinos are required to carry out thorough identity checks, which it monitors.
4. Last year, the KSA published a guideline on Cruks and identity checks, together with a short step-by-step plan for identity checks, to make the requirements in the identification and verification process clearer. In other words, the regulator has already explained the rules; this latest case is about enforcement, not ambiguity.
5. In July, the KSA finally disclosed that Casino Zoetermeer had been fined for admitting players listed on Cruks. The operator runs three land-based casinos in Zoetermeer, South Holland, near The Hague, and had tried to prevent publication of the sanction after the 2022 investigation.

For high-risk operators, the useful detail here is that the Dutch model depends on identity verification at the door as much as exclusion screening in the system. When that first layer is manual, the regulator will treat fraud as an operational risk, not a technicality.