The Dutch Supreme Court has dismissed claims brought by players seeking reimbursement for gambling losses incurred before the Netherlands formally regulated its online gambling market.
The ruling brings long-awaited clarity to a growing body of individual and collective legal claims that had been stayed pending the Supreme Court’s decision on the matter.
At the heart of the dispute was whether online gambling contracts formed before 1 October 2021 could be declared null and void under Dutch law.
Players argued that operators had been offering games of chance illegally, as the Dutch Betting and Gaming Act, known as the Wet op de kansspelen or Wok, prohibits unlicensed gambling activity.
However, until 1 April 2021, no licensing framework for online gambling existed in the Netherlands, meaning Dutch-facing operators had no legal pathway to obtain a local permit during that period.
The cases originated from preliminary questions submitted to the Supreme Court by the district courts of Amsterdam and Noord-Holland, both of which were handling test cases brought by players seeking loss refunds.
Those courts asked the Supreme Court to rule on whether pre-regulation gambling agreements were void and, if so, what the financial consequences for operators should be.
Earlier in the proceedings, Advocate General Siewert Lindenbergh had issued a non-binding opinion advising that historical online gambling contracts should not be treated as invalid solely because no Dutch licence scheme was in place at the time.
The Supreme Court’s decision aligns with that advisory opinion, offering a degree of relief to operators who had faced potential exposure to significant financial liability across multiple pending claims.
The Dutch outcome stands in contrast to rulings in other European jurisdictions, where courts have taken a harder line against unlicensed gambling operators and the contracts they entered into with players.
In Germany, the Federal Court of Justice ruled in July 2024 that sports betting offered without a German licence violates section 134 of the Civil Code, rendering those contracts null and allowing players to claim restitution.
An Advocate General at the Court of Justice of the European Union similarly treated unlicensed German gambling contracts as void, supporting the repayment of player losses in that context.
Austria’s Supreme Court has also held that contracts with foreign operators lacking a national licence are invalid, enabling Austrian players to pursue refunds through the courts.
The divergence across European jurisdictions creates a complex regulatory and legal landscape for operators that were active in multiple markets during the years before comprehensive online gambling regulation was introduced across the continent.
For the Dutch market specifically, the Supreme Court’s decision is expected to bring uniformity to case law and effectively close off the avenue that players had pursued to recover pre-regulation losses from online gambling operators.
