Dutch gambling regulator’s new Online Duty of Care Unit takes shape

The KSA has established a new department to oversee online gambling operators’ customer safeguards and protections.

The Netherlands.- The Dutch gambling regulator Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) has launched its new Online Duty of Care department. Announced by former chairman Rene Jansen in June, the temporary unit is intended to enhance the supervision of online gambling operators’ customer safeguards and protections.

The decision to create the department came after an investigation in September into ten online gambling providers’ interpretation of duty of care rules found significant differences between operators and shortcomings in compliance with the requirements of the Netherlands’ Remote Gambling Act (KOA).

The KSA said that the new unit will conduct extensive file research on providers that stand out in control data and on the basis of signals received from players. It will monitor operators’ implementation of new duty of care rules and will investigate other potential indicators of gambling addiction, including large losses.

In a speech at Gaming in Holland in Amsterdam, Jansen had said the KSA would take on ten to 15 new staff to run the department with the aim of opening it by September 1. 

New KSA chairman Michel Groothuizen said: “In our annual plan and the Supervisory Agenda 2024, we made it very clear that compliance with the duty of care is an important and urgent priority. To implement this correctly, we need to significantly increase our capacity. With this department, we are strengthening our supervision of the duty of care and focusing even more firmly on our mission of ‘playing safe’.”

The KSA also announced this month that it would aim to enhance duty of care at land-based gaming halls.