Dutch gambling ad ban proposal may backfire on legal operators
The Netherlands’ planned stance on gambling advertising could hurt the visibility of licenced operators and drive more players towards offshore platforms, according to Henk Wolff, a Netherlands-based iGaming consultant. He argues that stricter advertising bans will solely weaken legal brands.
The issue has become a hot topic in Dutch political circles, with lawmakers and regulators considering tighter rules amid concerns about young people being exposed to online betting advertisements.
Speaking to SiGMA News, Wolff argued that the Dutch market is already showing signs of strain after successive rounds of tighter regulation, including the ban on sports sponsorships, higher gambling taxes and restrictions on targeting audiences under 24.
“Adding broader untargeted restrictions on top of this stack does not reduce gambling,” Wolff said. “It reduces licenced brand recall, which sends players to Google to search ‘online casino Netherlands’ and the top result is whoever bought the SEO.”
The Netherlands banned sports sponsorships linked to gambling in July 2025 and raised gambling taxes to 37.8 per cent in January 2026. Authorities have also tightened player protection rules and banned gambling advertisements targeting people under 24. Now, the Dutch government is considering even stricter advertising bans, including the possibility of a full ban.
Impact visible in the market
However, Wolff believes the impact on the regulated market is already visible. “Look at what tightening has already produced,” he said. “Channelisation by Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) fell below 50 per cent for the first time since the market opened, and the Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) submitted over 4,600 reports to Meta in a single month on unlicenced operators alone.”
“Restriction without channelisation is theatre. It pushes the players you most want to protect toward operators who run zero checks.”
– Henk Wolff, iGaming Consultant
He added that stricter rules alone would not solve the issue if enforcement gaps continue to persist. “The KSA has been clear: the rules already on the books are not being enforced consistently. A recent study by City University of Hong Kong proves that,” he said. “Stacking new restrictions on a rulebook that is under-enforced doesn’t change player behaviour. It just compresses the licenced market further and accelerates the offshore migration that’s already underway.”
The study by City University of Hong Kong had identified 277 paid gambling advertisements on Facebook and Instagram linked to licenced Dutch operators. Of these, 31 ads, representing 11.2 per cent, targeted users aged between 18 and 23, despite Dutch gambling advertising laws classifying this age group as protected.
No clarity on VPN use
Wolff also challenged the assumption that the regulated market fully reflects Dutch gambling activity, particularly with the rise of crypto casinos, VPN-based access and Telegram-linked gambling services.
“The Dutch numbers settle the debate,” Wolff stressed. “94 per cent of Dutch players in H1 2025 used only licenced operators, but those same operators captured just 49 per cent of GGR. The high-spend cohort is already offshore.”
He also questioned whether authorities truly understand the scale of offshore gambling activity. “I do not think the regulator nor the investigator has a full scope,” he claimed. “I’ve seen plenty of operators that receive payments from the Netherlands through the legal payment methods, but they just use a VPN.”
A shared responsibility
The debate has also drawn attention to Meta’s advertising systems, particularly after research by the University of Hong Kong examined whether gambling ads were still reaching younger users despite existing safeguards.
Wolff argued that responsibility for the issue is shared among operators, platforms and regulators. “Both, plus a third party most coverage has missed: the regulator,” he said. “The KSA initially disputed whether the under-24 rule even applied to offline licence holders when the City University of Hong Kong study raised it, then conceded it could not conclude. That is a rules problem, not a Meta problem.”
Still, he said structural weaknesses within Meta’s advertising systems remain a serious concern. “Meta’s structural weaknesses are real,” Wolff said. “Advantage+ defaults the target age to 18 unless manually overridden, and reach is reported in 18-24 brackets, which makes verifying compliance with a 24-plus floor structurally impossible.”
Despite this, he said compliance standards among operators varied significantly. “There are four things every licenced operator running paid social campaigns in the Netherlands should have in place: a default 25-plus age exclusion in every campaign brief, a quarterly audit of its own brand in the Ad Library, a hard veto on illicit Netherlands campaigns, and a separate sign-off process for cross-platform campaigns reaching EU users.”
He also backed tougher financial penalties for platforms if gambling advertisements continue reaching protected audiences.
“The current incentive structure is not aligned properly,” Wolff added. “Licenced operators face fines as a percentage of Dutch turnover, licence review, and reputational damage when they breach. But, Meta just faces takedown requests and keeps the ad revenue from both licenced and unlicenced inventory. The reason it hasn’t happened yet is political, not legal.”
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