The Dutch Gambling Authority (Kansspelautoriteit, KSA) has once again taken action against Unibet, operated by Optdeck Service Ltd., for repeated violations of Dutch gambling laws. The regulator announced that the company now faces a penalty order requiring it to pay €75,000 for every week a violation occurs, capped at €450,000. This order will remain in force until August 20, 2028.

According to the KSA, the violations, recorded between October 2022 and May 2025, involved offering betting options that are strictly forbidden under Dutch law. These included wagers on under-21 football matches and on game components such as yellow cards and corner kicks—both of which regulators consider highly vulnerable to manipulation.

The sanction was triggered after years of warnings, with the regulator stating that it sees “insufficient improvement and a real risk of recurrence.”

History of Warnings and Breaches

KSA’s scrutiny of Unibet dates back to October 2022, when the regulator first warned operators ahead of the FIFA World Cup that certain bet types, including yellow card wagers, were prohibited. Despite these instructions, Unibet went on to accept more than 125,000 bets across 214 under-21 football matches during the 2023/2024 season.

The violations did not stop there. During the Chelsea vs. Manchester United match on May 15, 2025, Unibet offered bets on yellow cards and corners. Although the operator eventually canceled the wagers after identifying the problem, the incident reinforced regulators’ concerns.

KSA officials argue that such bets pose a particularly high risk of match-fixing. “These types of bets are explicitly prohibited under Dutch gambling laws and regulations,” the authority stressed.

Pattern of Non-Compliance

This is far from the first time Unibet has clashed with Dutch regulators. In late 2024, the operator was fined €400,000 for allowing access to players listed in CRUKS, the Netherlands’ self-exclusion register.

More recently, in June 2025, the company received two simultaneous warnings for separate breaches. One related to advertising, after Unibet’s sponsorship branding appeared on a bus used by the Tietema Rockets cycling team in violation of non-targeted advertising rules. The second centered on the BonusBuy function, an autoplay-style feature that regulators say encourages excessive gambling.

In both cases, Unibet claimed to have acted quickly to correct mistakes, compensating affected players and modifying branding. Yet the KSA remains unconvinced that the company has taken sufficient structural steps to prevent repeat violations.

Dispute Over Risk of Repeat Offenses

Unibet has argued that its breaches should be viewed as isolated missteps rather than evidence of ongoing non-compliance. The company claimed the incidents occurred sporadically and at significant intervals, meaning they did not represent a pattern of persistent misconduct.

The KSA, however, rejected this interpretation. It pointed to the operator’s repeated failures across different types of regulations and emphasized that the corrective measures provided lacked coherence. The regulator concluded that these shortcomings left “a real danger” of further violations.

Wider Consequences for the Brand

The penalty order comes as part of a broader series of regulatory clashes for Unibet. Beyond the Netherlands, the brand has also faced disciplinary action abroad. In May 2025, Australian regulators fined the operator AU$1 million (US$640,000) for breaches of self-exclusion rules. Moreover, in 2023, Unibet was convicted in New South Wales for posting illegal gambling advertisements and received a fine of $60,000.

Within the Netherlands, the KSA has become increasingly aggressive in enforcing compliance since market liberalization in 2021. Its latest penalty calculation was based on how much Unibet could potentially profit from continuing to offer illegal bets, increased by 150% to ensure deterrence.

For Unibet, the stakes are high. If any further violations occur before August 2028, each week of non-compliance will add another €75,000 to its liabilities, up to the €450,000 cap. As the KSA made clear, it sees the issue not as a matter of occasional mistakes but as a consistent failure to meet regulatory standards. Unless the operator can demonstrate stronger safeguards and long-term compliance, financial and reputational consequences may continue to escalate.