The Netherlands’ gambling regulatory authority Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) has announced that as of 1 January it will add age verification as a priority criteria in its approach to online gambling.
As a result, illegal providers of online gambling who do not visibly verify the age of participants before the registration process is completed, now look set to be dealt with as a priority by the gambling regulator, with fines set to be dished out should the criteria not be met.
The KSA has stated that the range of illegal online gambling games is huge and that its main principle in regards to combating this is the protection of Dutch consumers in general as well as preventing minors from taking part in games of chance.
Means of proof will now be required for age verification usages as a participants statement is no longer considered to be valid. As well as this, It must also be clear to players how their age is being verified whether internally or externally.
Furthermore, failure to verify a customers age before the completion of the registration process will have long term consequences as it will be negatively taken into account at a later stage if an online gambling license is applied for.
Moreover, the KSA also emphasised that offering games of chance without a license is prohibited, they explained that merely satisfying the age verification requirement will not stop its enforcement.
Recently, the KSA updated industry stakeholders on ‘provisional guidance’ related to its licensing process, which is scheduled to officially open from 1 July 2020.
Along with that update, the regulator also demanded that incumbents provide a ‘reliability assessment’ of their products, services and operations, detailing key management, corporate governance, legal counsel and tech partners (platform, payments, data providers, etc).
