SBC Summit Europe: Inside the Netherlands’ Five-Year Gambling Experiment

From Pavlov’s dogs to the Wright brothers taking flight, history is filled with experiments that turned ambitious ideas into reality.

But experiments rarely offer simple conclusions. They take time, testing and refinement, with each result helping shape what comes next.

And in the European betting and gaming industry, few regulated markets have offered a more interesting experiment than the Netherlands.

In just five years, the Dutch regulated online market has moved from launch to rapid development, tighter player-protection measures, tax increases and an increasingly complex debate around channelisation.

Now, as the Netherlands prepares to host SBC Summit Europe 2027, it feels like the perfect time to open the research log on the Dutch experiment: how it began, the major milestones along the way, where the market stands today and what its next chapter could look like.

The Road to a Regulated Market

For decades, the Betting and Gaming Act (Wet op de kansspelen / Wok), introduced in 1964, governed Dutch gambling. But as online gambling grew, so too did the need for a framework capable of regulating it.

• 2011: The Dutch government announced plans to modernise its gambling policy, including the introduction of a licensing system for online gambling.
• 2012: The Netherlands Gambling Authority (Kansspelautoriteit/KSA) was established, marking the first major step in that modernisation.
• 2014–2019: The Remote Gambling Bill was submitted to parliament, passing the House of Representatives in 2016 and the Senate in 2019.
• April 2021: The Remote Gambling Act (Koa) came into force, allowing operators to begin applying for licences.
• October 2021: The regulated Dutch online gambling market officially opened.

A decade after modernisation was first put on the agenda, the Dutch online gambling experiment was finally underway.

The Experiment Begins: Opening the Dutch Online Market

Despite the long and winding road to regulation, the launch of the Dutch regulated market was precise and calculated. 

The objective was simple: create an attractive enough legal offering that consumers would choose licensed sites, where stronger player protections could be applied.

To achieve this, the Dutch government and KSA established several key conditions: 

• Gambling tax: Online gambling launched with a tax rate of 29% of GGR, designed to generate public revenue while maintaining an attractive licence for operators. 
• Wave one operators: Just 10 operators were approved for launch, underscoring the high level of standards for entry. 
• Foundational player protection: Cruks, the national self-exclusion register, launched, alongside addiction-prevention and player-monitoring requirements.
• Illegal-market enforcement: Unlicensed operators would face a 4% penalty on turnover over €15 million. A basic fine of €600,000 was implemented for operators with undisclosed turnover. 
• Channelisation target: The ultimate goal. The government aimed for at least 80% channelisation within three years.

From 10 Operators to a Thriving Market: The Early Years

So, with the board set and the market officially open, the first question was simple: would Dutch players actually embrace the regulated market? 

The early signs suggested they would. 

By late 2022, the early results looked like the market was achieving everything that government and regulators had set out to achieve:

• The market now held 24 licensed operators, more than double the 10 approved at launch.
• Monthly legal-market GGR had reached approximately €80m.
• 563,000 active player accounts were recorded in July 2022.
• More than 23,000 people had registered with Cruks.
• Most importantly, estimated player channelisation had already reached 85%, surpassing the government’s 80% three-year target within the market’s first year.

And the market continued to develop. 

By 2023, the player channelisation had climbed to approximately 90%, while annual online GGR reached around €1.39bn. By 2024, the number of licensed online operators had reached 30. 

On the surface, the experiment was working. Players were flocking to licensed platforms, operators were entering, and the market was growing. 

But rapid expansion often brings greater scrutiny, and the Dutch market was no exception. 

Changing the Variable: The Rules Begin to Tighten 

Beneath the rapid growth, concerns were beginning to emerge. 

Advertising was one of the first areas of contention. The influx of gambling advertisements following the 2021 launch prompted concerns around the exposure of young and vulnerable players, leading the government to tighten the rules.

• 2022: The use of role models in gambling advertising was banned. 
• July 2023: A ban on untargeted online gambling advertising came into force, removing adverts from television, radio, print and public spaces
• July 2025: Sports sponsorships ban, removing licensed gambling brands from sponsorships of teams, clubs, competitions and shirts. 

After an extensive KSA investigation concluded operators were not going far enough in fulfilling their duty-of-care obligations, 2024 saw some of the market’s most significant player protection reforms actioned. 

• Players aged 24 and over reaching €700 in net deposits per month must undergo a financial affordability check before being allowed to deposit further.
• For players aged 18–23, that threshold is reduced to €300.
• Operators must detect, analyse and respond to signs of excessive gambling within one hour, with monitoring required 24/7.

The result of these changing experimental factors was significant. 

Before the new measures, 9.7% of players deposited above the €300/€700 thresholds. By March 2025, that had fallen to just 2.2%. Average losses per player account also fell 31%, from €116 per month in the eight months before implementation to €80 in the eight months afterwards.

Five years into the Dutch experiment, the Netherlands had moved well beyond its original framework, with player protection becoming an increasingly prominent part of its regulatory approach.

But was there a limit to the positive impact of regulatory reform? 

Higher Taxes, But Higher Revenue?

One of the biggest turning points in the Dutch experiment was the announcement of higher taxes. 

The gambling tax rate increased from 30.5% to 34.2% in 2025, before rising again to 37.8% in 2026. For comparison, when the regulated online market launched in 2021, the rate stood at just 29%.

The intention was clear: generate greater public revenue from the regulated gambling market. But the results haven’t quite followed expectations.

• The tax increases were expected to generate an additional €108m in 2025 and €216m in 2026.
• Instead, the estimated increase compared with 2024 was just €2m in 2025.
• For 2026, additional revenue is projected at €57m, significantly below the original €216m expectation.
• Meanwhile, operators including LiveScore Group and Tombola exited the Dutch market in 2024, citing the current taxation rules as “commercially non-viable.”

Whilst the tax increases haven’t generated the additional revenue initially projected, they were introduced alongside tighter player-protection, advertising and sponsorship rules, making it difficult to isolate the impact of taxation alone.

The 2026 Paradox: 91% or 53%?

And then came arguably the most interesting finding of the experiment

By H2 2025, the licensed market was still generating approximately €602m in GGR, equivalent to around €100m per month. 

More importantly, an estimated 91% of Dutch online gamblers played exclusively with licensed operators.

By the original definition of success established in 2021, when the Netherlands targeted 80% channelisation within three years, that’s an impressive result.

But there is another number that complicates the picture.

When channelisation is measured by player losses rather than player numbers, the regulated market’s share falls to approximately 53%.

In other words, relatively few Dutch players appear to gamble with illegal operators, but those who do account for a disproportionately large share of gambling losses.

And therein lies the paradox at the heart of the Dutch experiment. 

If success is measured by the number of players using licensed operators, the market is comfortably outperforming the 80% target established at launch. But if success is measured by where players are actually losing their money, almost half of those losses are taking place outside the regulated market.

The Dutch Experiment: What do the Results Say? 

So, five years after launch, what has the Dutch experiment actually taught us?

The Netherlands has built a competitive regulated market, exceeded its original player channelisation target and introduced increasingly stringent protections designed to reduce gambling-related harm.

Yet higher taxes haven’t generated the returns initially expected, while the gap between 91% player channelisation and 53% financial channelisation shows just how complicated measuring regulatory success can be.

And perhaps that’s the most interesting result of the experiment so far.

As the variables change, so does the definition of success.

With the Netherlands entering the next stage of its regulated journey, the experiment is far from drawing a final conclusion. And when the industry arrives in Amsterdam for SBC Summit Europe 2027, there will be plenty more results to discuss.

Continue the Conversation: Netherlands Market Snapshot Webinar

Want to learn more about the Dutch experiment from those who know it best? 

Ahead of SBC Summit Europe 2027, we’re bringing together four industry experts for a free webinar titled “Netherlands Market Snapshot: Channelisation vs Regulation”, on Wednesday, November 18. 

Featuring Frank Op De Woord (CasinoNieuws.nl), Bjorn Fuchs (Janshen-Hahnraths Group), Justin Franssen (Franssen Tolboom Advocaten) and Nicolas Fleiderman (Holland Casino Online), the discussion will examine whether increasingly restrictive regulations are driving players towards unlicensed operators, and what this means for player protection, channelisation and the future of the Dutch market.

It’s an opportunity to hear directly from industry leaders, explore the questions raised in this article, and get ahead of the conversations set to take place in Amsterdam next April.

Register for free here

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