Europe must unite in its fight against illegal gambling, according to Michel Groothuizen, Chair of the Netherlands’ gambling regulator, the Kansspelautoriteit (KSA).
Groothuizen made the appeal following the Netherlands’ annual gambling committee debate, publishing his views in a blog directed at European nations and policymakers.
He stated bluntly that half of every euro wagered by Dutch consumers flows into the illegal gambling market, costing the country more than €500 million annually in lost tax revenue.
The KSA chairman also highlighted the staggering global scale of illegal gambling, noting that its total turnover represents a greater GDP than any country on earth, except the United States and China.
Responding to the annual debate held in the House of Representatives, Groothuizen criticised lawmakers for failing to acknowledge the deeply international character of the illegal gambling problem.
He said: “In my view, it is naive to cling to the idea that a well-regulated legal national market and a national regulator are sufficient to tackle this problem.”
Groothuizen raised serious concerns about unlicensed operators deliberately targeting vulnerable Dutch players, including those registered with the country’s Cruks self-exclusion scheme.
He pointed to one particularly disturbing case involving an illegal gambling site that disguised itself as 113.nl, the Netherlands’ national suicide prevention service, exploiting trust to lure vulnerable individuals.
The KSA chief acknowledged that regulators regularly impose fines worth tens of millions of euros, but said these penalties barely affect profits and are routinely ignored by illegal operators.
Many of these operators evade accountability by rapidly changing legal identities or relocating to jurisdictions beyond regulatory reach, including territories such as the Comoros.
Groothuizen confirmed the KSA is actively working to make illegal gambling sites harder to find and disrupt the financial infrastructure supporting them, while pressing tech firms and banks to step up.
He said: “Against these globally operating tech and financial companies, the Netherlands is simply far too small. We inevitably need Europe to get such parties to work with us in the fight against illegal gambling.”
His calls for broader European action were reinforced by the Financial Action Task Force, which has identified illegal gambling as a significant risk to the global financial sector.
The FATF also flagged that in several jurisdictions, the illegal market has already grown larger in size than the regulated, legal gambling market it operates alongside.
Back home, the Netherlands continues to implement a raft of reforms to the Remote Gaming Act, while State Secretary of Justice Claudia van Bruggen faced questions from nine MPs covering player protection, advertising bans, licence limits, and black market concerns.
