On June 7, the Kansspelautoriteit (KSA), the Dutch gambling regulator, issued an order to Winning Poker Network and Malta-based Goldwin Ltd. to periodically pay a fine for illegally accepting Dutch customers in its online gaming offering. They are ordered to stop performing activities for which they do not have a license. Furthermore, if they do not obey, a penalty is imposed later.

However, Winning Poker Network did not rescind the offer after that and therefore has to pay the aforementioned penalty. But, Goldwin LTD stopped its operations as soon as the order was issued.

KSA’s investigation:

The cease-and-desist order was issued on March 1 to the Winning Poker Network, which followed an investigation in September 2022 by the Netherlands gaming authority.

Despite warning that enforcement would follow and vowing to stop offering online gambling to Dutch customers, a subsequent investigation by KSA discovered that this promise had not been fulfilled, because although the original americascardroom.eu website was no longer available to Dutch players, a new account could easily be created on another website of the same provider, which is www.truepoker.eu. Additionally, this provided the opportunity to play on that website from the Netherlands. As soon as this was discovered, the KSA issued an order for the periodic payment of a fine of 25,000 euros per week, with a maximum of 75.000 euros. However, the sum of the fine is also decided by the size of illegal provider’s offer. But, the illegal offers of Winning Poker have not stopped at the time of publication of this announcement, with which the fine is actually collected from the Winning Poker Network. In this regard, the KSA will continue its investigation following this fine, with the ultimate goal of bringing this illegal offering to a complete halt, further leading to enforcement action being taken again.

On the other hand, GoldWin LTD has given Duth players the chance to gamble online on the westcasino.com website, but without having the required license. Therefore, according to the KSA order, they have to pay a fine of 239.000 euros, with a maximum of 717.000 euros. Additionally, a subsequent investigation discovered that the breach has now stopped, although the periodic penalty order still stays. When and if Goldwin LTD again decides to offer online gaming to Dutch players again, the periodic penalty will still be imposed.

Commenting on the periodic penalty order, René Jansen, president of the KSA, said: “It must pay off for providers of games of chance to offer their games legally. That is only possible if we take the wind out of illegal supply. We are fully committed to stopping these practices.”

A license is required to offer online gambling to Dutch players:

In order to offer online gambling experience to Dutch players, each company needs to obtain a license from the KSA. Therefore, the KSA has strict rules and regulations to make sure that it is a safe and legal offering, where players can experience a fair game and are fully protected from developing gambling addiction.