The Netherlands Gambling Authority (KSA) has published a new report, shared on its official website, in which it took stock of the most recently introduced consumer protection safeguards, and focused on the results for the second half of 2024.
Young players lose less compared to 24+ players
Launched in October 2024, the measures sought to better protect consumers, steer them away from offshore and black-market websites, and generally strengthen the industry’s ability to minimize harm and prevent the development of excessive gambling.
The most recent results, argues the KSA, have all indicated positive developments in these verticals, although there are reasons for concern. In the report and executive summary, the regulator has singled out some of the key figures.
For one, young people lost a collective 11% of gross gaming while constituting 9% of the adult population that is allowed to gamble. The age group mentioned here in particular is those people aged 18 to 23 years.
This group, however, still seems to be gambling responsibly, as they tend to lose an average of €48 per month. This is much lower than the amount lost by those aged 24 and older – who tend to lose around €148 on average.
However, this is still better than the last six-month period when that same group – those aged 24 and older – lost €160 on average.
Another cause for celebration was that the number of accounts with "extreme losses" also declined over the most recently surveyed period to just 1.2%, down from 4% previously. An "extreme loss" is defined by the regulator as anything more than €1,000 per month, but there is an even more important underlying trend here.
Extreme loss players contribute less to GGR
If Casino Guru News understands correctly, players with "extreme losses" used to account for 73% of the total gross gaming revenue before the implementation of the measures on October 1, 2024. In the months following their introduction, for the period ending on December 31, 2024, this figure dropped to just 23%.
The regulator was also able to take a closer look at active accounts that were used at least once per month. The surveyed period, covering the second half of the year showed that 1.19 million accounts were active, up from 1.1 millionaccounts in the previous six-month period.
However, the watchdog did caution to not take these numbers at face value as the number of active accounts is not necessarily the same as the number of active players behind them. In fact, the Dutch regulatory framework allows for players to have multiple accounts if they choose to.
Strong channelization but unsatisfactory gambling spend numbers
The regulator has another cause for celebration, as an estimated 91% of all people who participated in some form of gambling chose to do so with a regulated company, pointing to a very high channelization rate, but still lower than H1's 95%.
Casino Guru's Head of Data and Complaints, Matej Novota, also commented on the regulator's latest data and said:
The Netherlands has been clearly moving forward with some of the most ambitious player protection measures, and the overall regulatory framework has resulted in declining losses among players, improved harm minimization, and better overall safeguards. However, all of this needs to be assessed in context.
The KSA's reporting methodology is a clear example of how a transparent watchdog focused on strengthening market safeguards should act — but the issue remains.
While channelization has reached 91% among players, the fact that the KSA now has evidence that 50% of total spending goes to operators not licensed in the country raises serious concerns.
The regulator has noted that the share of players suffering "extreme losses" has declined, as have their contributions - down to 23% from 73% of gross gaming revenue previously, but these players most likely did not just stop playing. The fact that the regulator acknowledges such high gambling spending with non-locally licensed operators remains a critical issue that must be addressed.
Stakeholders, lawmakers, and the watchdog should continue to analyze the measures that apply locally and ensure that Dutch citizens who spend significant amounts offshore are brought back into the regulated market.
However, channelization is only one side of the story, as the regulator estimates that half of the total amount of money spent on gambling is still spent with illegal operators.
What about problem gamblers? The Netherlands Gambling Authority has also paid attention to this metric as well. The regulator noted that the exact number of people experiencing gambling-related problems was hard to pinpoint.
Therefore, the regulator used the Cruks register number which included 87,345 people as of January 2025, with half of those people under the age of 32.
