KSA Delivers Felling Blow To PokerStars Dutch Operation

When online poker first hit the market, it was a reintroduction of the Wild West days of early online gambling. It was a new product that rode the line between skill and chance which initially caused a lot of confusion for regulators and allowed poker sites to grow, and even thrive, with impunity.

However, those wonder years have long since passed and as the online gambling industry as a whole has matured and many countries have bedded down their regulation it has become the smart play to understand the rules and use them to your advantage… something PokerStars has failed to do in the Netherlands.

✓Big Fine, Bigger Problem

The Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) hit PokerStars with a sizable €400,000 fine for contravening several of stipulations for online gambling in the Netherlands. They highlighted that PokerStars had fallen foul of their requirements by:

• Allowing play from Dutch IP Addresses
• Allowing deposits from local payment processor iDeal
• Hosting Dutch language pages on their website
• Not adding the Netherlands to their list of excluded countries

While PokerStars has subsequently complied with all the requirements the KSA laid out before them the fine will still need to be paid and more importantly, it may harm their chances of going live with a licence in January 2021.

✓Potential Late 2021 Timeout

The KSA recently reported on their intention to open the floor to potential online gambling licensees in June 2020 with the aim to have legal licenced online gambling available by January 2021.

As part of this announcement, they included a potential two year “cooling off” period for operators who had contravened the KSA’s regulations. While this allows them to not be permanently banned from operating in the market it does provide their competitors with a significant advantage.

With this fine PokerStars may find themselves in the KSA timeout corner till September 2021. This will allow their competitors nearly a full year in which to establish their brands in the Dutch market.