The Dutch Remote Gambling Act (KOA)

What the law changed, and what it did not

Before the Koa, there was no way to offer online gambling legally in the Netherlands: no licence existed that permitted it. The offering existed anyway, just outside any oversight. The law did not fix that by removing the prohibition, but by introducing a licence and attaching conditions to it.

What did not change is the starting point. Offering gambling in the Netherlands is prohibited unless the law allows it. An operator without a licence does not sit in a grey zone; it sits on the wrong side of a prohibition. That distinction runs through the whole law and explains why so much of what you encounter at a licensed operator is not optional.

The licence requirement follows the player, not the server

What decides is not where an operator is based or where its infrastructure sits, but who it targets. Anyone offering gambling to players in the Netherlands needs a Dutch licence for that. A licence from another country does not confer that authority, however strict the oversight there.

The licence is also granted for a specific type of gambling and in the name of a legal entity, not a brand name. How you verify that yourself is set out on what a Ksa licence means.

The duty of care is the part you notice most

The law requires a licence holder to prevent and limit addiction, and that is not a statement of intent but a series of concrete actions. The operator must inform you of the risks, let you set limits in advance, monitor your play, and contact you when that play gives reason to.

That duty rests with the operator, even when you do not ask for it yourself. That is exactly why an intervention sometimes arrives at an inconvenient moment: the operator may not ignore a signal because you would rather keep playing. What you can set yourself, and which signals matter, is covered on responsible gambling.

CRUKS sits in the law, not in an operator's terms

The Koa provided the legal basis for the Centraal Register Uitsluiting Kansspelen, the central exclusion register. Connection to it is a licence condition: every licence holder must query the register before letting you play, and must refuse you if you are listed. That applies online, in arcades and at Holland Casino at once.

That makes an exclusion something different from a limit at one operator. It works across the whole market and cannot be undone with a conversation at customer support. How the register works is covered on CRUKS explained.

Identification upfront, and the age limit

A licence holder may not let you play before it knows who you are. Two things depend on that: the legal age limit, which cannot be enforced without identification, and the query of the exclusion register, which has no meaning without an established identity.

In practice this is usually done through your bank, with iDIN. The law does not prescribe a specific method; it prescribes the outcome, that the operator establishes identity and age reliably. If that route does not work for you, the operator has to offer an alternative — the prohibition on playing without identification remains in place regardless.

Advertising is allowed, within limits that have shifted

The law allows licence holders to promote their offering, but ties that to rules: vulnerable groups may not be targeted, and the message may not misrepresent the chance of winning. These limits have been tightened more than once since the law took effect.

We do not name years or percentages for those tightenings here, because exactly which rule applies at which moment is the kind of detail that shifts. The current state is set out in the legal text and in the Kansspelautoriteit's guidance; changes are reported in our news section as they occur.

Tax sits within the licensed part of the market

At a licensed Dutch operator, gambling tax on your winnings is withheld and remitted by the operator. In practice you see little of this, and that is the intent: remittance is the licence holder's duty, not an administrative task passed to you. What that means in detail is covered on gambling tax in the Netherlands.

Play with an operator without a Dutch licence, and that withholding disappears; the filing obligation then falls to you.

Where the line sits with unlicensed offerings

The line is not vague: there is a register of licence holders, and anyone not on it may not target players in the Netherlands. What you are missing with such an offering is not only oversight, but the whole package above — the duty of care, the exclusion register query, identification and tax remittance.

The Kansspelautoriteit has enforcement powers to act against unlicensed offerings. What measure it takes in a specific case is stated in its decision; we take that from the source and do not add an estimate of our own. We do not name unlicensed operators, not even in a cautionary sentence.