Nederlandse Loterij targets Skyhills in the Netherlands after Lalabet court win

The state-backed Nederlandse Loterij has ordered the operators of the unauthorised gambling site Skyhills to stop serving Dutch players, and says the platform is now inaccessible in the Netherlands. For PSPs and operators, the point is obvious: Dutch enforcement is moving from complaints to court-backed pressure on the people and companies behind these sites.

1. On Tuesday, Nederlandse Loterij sent a cease-and-desist notice to companies and directors connected with Skyhills across several jurisdictions, including Costa Rica, North Macedonia, the United Kingdom, Curaçao, Malta and the Marshall Islands. The operator says the site is now offline for users in the Netherlands.
2. Arjan Blok, CEO of Nederlandse Loterij, said Skyhills used “devious advertising,” including on TikTok, to target Dutch players, especially young people. His framing is straightforward: players on illegal sites are gambling without safeguards and face all associated risks.
3. The move follows a recent court ruling in the separate Lalabet case, which reached a milestone in June. A Dutch court ruled largely in favour of Nederlandse Loterij, found Lalabet’s operators and directors had acted unlawfully by targeting Dutch players, and ordered them to stop and disclose detailed ownership and shareholder information.
4. The Lalabet judgment also looked at possible liabilities for trust administrators and local representatives that help illegal gambling sites operate. The court did not find Curaçao-based trust firm DECC and its directors liable in that case, but it signalled that intermediaries may face closer scrutiny going forward.
5. Nederlandse Loterij has now said it plans to appeal parts of the Lalabet decision, especially its view that trust firms have a duty to vet clients properly. The operator is also examining the role of the same trust firm in relation to Qbet and Skyhills, which suggests more proceedings could follow once the corporate structure is clearer.

The wider backdrop is a policy fight in The Hague. The Dutch House of Representatives is set to discuss gambling regulation reforms this week, and Nederlandse Loterij has backed government proposals to expand the Gambling Authority’s powers against illegal operators while warning that full legislative changes could take years to bite.