Hard on the heels of Belgium’s recent clampdown on non-licensed operators, the Netherlands has taken steps to protect its De Lotto lottery and gambling monopoly against competition from European-licensed online gambling websites.
The High Court in the country has handed down a ruling that international gambling companies are responsible for installing monitoring software and blocking Dutch customers from accessing their websites, not internet service providers in the country. Banks and credit card companies found to be processing payments on behalf of Dutch gamblers for these websites also risk prosecution under Dutch law.
With the notable exception of sports betting offered by state lottery and betting monopoly De Lotto, all forms of online gambling are currently illegal in the Netherlands.
The Dutch High Court ruling is founded on the European Court of Justice’s June 2010 decision that international gambling companies’ exclusion from the market could be justified on the basis that a monopoly was the most effective vehicle by which to address social responsibility issues, such as problem gambling and fraud.
The ECJ decision marked the end of a five-year legal battle between De Lotto and private operators Ladbrokes and Betfair over the UK companies’ right to offer gambling services into Holland under the freedom to trade and freedom of establishment rights enshrined in Articles 56 and 49 of the EU Treaty.
It appeared that the Dutch government may have changed tack on the issue October 2010, when Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf quoted “sources in the Hague” as saying the Dutch government intended to sell or invite tenders for licences to offer online sports betting, poker and casino games, with annual government revenues from the plan estimated at €270m. This followed advice from the Dutch Ministry of Justice the previous month that the government in the Netherlands should allow private operators to apply for online poker licences.
But last week’s High Court ruling demonstrated that the Dutch government remains firmly wedded to a prohibitionist stance on online gambling being offered outside of its own state monopoly.
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Image by waterwin used under Creative Commons 2.0 licence.
