KSA Chair Calls for European Coordination to Counter Global Scale of Illegal Gambling
KSA Chair Michel Groothuizen said that of every euro a Dutch person gambles away, half goes to the illegal market, whose global turnover exceeds the GDP of any country with the exception of the US and China. He called for European intervention and an international investigative approach, as the Netherlands is simply far too small. This aligns with FATF and EGBA calls for collaboration.
SCCG Take — National regulators face structural limits against global operators. Licensed firms need effective European coordination to reduce black-market competition and restore market balance.
The Chair of the Netherlands’ gambling regulator has urged greater cross-border collaboration to combat the illegal gambling market.
Michel Groothuizen, Chair of the Kansspelautoriteit (KSA), detailed the challenge in a blog following the Netherlands’ annual gambling committee debate. According to reporting by SBC News, Groothuizen said illegal gambling “is, in fact, an unprecedentedly large and complex problem. Of every euro a Dutch person gambles away, half goes to the illegal market.”
Groothuizen added that the turnover of the global illegal gambling market exceeds the GDP of any country with the exception of the US and China. He rejected the common image of foreign companies with sound business practices that occasionally attract Dutch players via the internet.
The KSA chair stated the Netherlands is simply “far too small” to achieve meaningful impact alone. Groothuizen explained that Europe must persuade technology platforms and other parties to cooperate. “We are fighting a global network of ruthless criminal organisations with dedicated community police officers, whereas we should actually be deploying an international investigative service,” he said.
This stance comes amid ongoing implementation of reforms to the Remote Gaming Act. State Secretary of Justice Claudia van Bruggen recently answered parliamentary questions on player protection measures such as raising the legal gambling age to 21, limiting the number of licence holders, the impending advertising ban, and the black market. Groothuizen welcomed proposals to block illegal websites and use fake identities against unlicensed operators. The KSA is holding major tech companies accountable for black market advertising on social media.
Shared Industry Calls for Joint Action
The KSA is not alone. The Financial Action Task Force published risk indicators last week to help regulators identify black market operators and urged appropriate risk-based responses including public-private collaboration. The European Gaming and Betting Association has also pressed for improved coordination among national and international bodies in the fight against illegal gambling.
Limitations of Isolated National Regulation
A single jurisdiction cannot match the infrastructure of a borderless criminal network that moves financial flows and places social media advertisements at global scale. Without sustained European-level pressure, licensed operators in the Netherlands will continue facing direct competition from unlicensed providers that capture half of all Dutch gambling activity. Regulators and lawmakers should treat this as a prompt to elevate coordinated enforcement above other priorities if the regulated market is to gain ground.
Reporting: SBC News
Generated by SCCG’s automated editorial system from published source reporting. SCCG Management holds editorial responsibility.
National regulators cannot fight trillion-dollar global illegal networks alone — European coordination is now a commercial necessity, not diplomacy.
We've built partnerships in every regulated European market, and we see this friction daily: licensed operators compete on uneven ground against illegal networks that dwarf most national economies. Groothuizen's call for cross-border enforcement and tech platform accountability is the first realistic path to leveling the field for compliant operators.
- Half of every euro Dutch players wager flows to illegal operators outside regulatory reach
- Global illegal gambling turnover exceeds GDP of every nation except US and China
- KSA urges Europe-wide enforcement, tech platform accountability, and fake identities against unlicensed sites
SCCG angle: SCCG connects licensed operators to the regulatory intelligence and government relations partners who shape cross-border enforcement in every European jurisdiction. When the policy battlefield shifts from national to continental, our network of 545 partners ensures operators have aligned advocacy and compliance strategies across borders.
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