The chair of the Dutch Gambling Authority has pushed back against tying betting limits to income, arguing that gambling rules should not become a way for the state to decide how much people may lose.
Michel Groothuizen said online betting has become easier to access because smartphones removed many of the old barriers, allowing bets to be placed at any time and raising the risk that financial problems escalate quickly.
According to iGamingToday, he said that greater accessibility should lead to stronger consumer safeguards, but not to a system in which the government effectively decides how citizens spend their own money. He added that limits based solely on earnings risk crossing into decisions that belong to individuals rather than the state.
His comments came as the Dutch government considers sweeping gambling reforms. The package would prohibit online gambling advertising and bonuses, raise the minimum age for higher-risk online games to 21, introduce a single deposit limit across licensed operators, strengthen duty-of-care obligations and expand the KSA’s powers against illegal gambling websites.
Groothuizen also noted that licensed operators already have a legal duty to assess customers’ financial circumstances under both responsible-gambling rules and anti-money-laundering requirements. He said the regulator can take enforcement action when companies fail to meet those standards.
He acknowledged, however, that some groups remain especially vulnerable regardless of income, and that those players may need extra protection in specific circumstances.
One of his main proposals would automatically add everyone registered in the Netherlands’ Central Curatorship and Administration Register, or CCBR, to Cruks for as long as they remain under protective administration or guardianship.
Cruks is the Netherlands’ national self-exclusion register, and it allows people to exclude themselves voluntarily or be registered involuntarily. The minimum exclusion period is six months, and Groothuizen supports a separate proposal to extend it to one year.
Next.io reported on 3 July that Groothuizen described the CCBR proposal as protection for an “extremely vulnerable group” and said around 250,000 people are under protective orders in the Netherlands, with another 25,000 under guardianship. The report quoted him saying gambling is “not an ordinary product” and can cause major financial, social and health problems for players and those around them.
The Netherlands had already tightened online gambling rules on 1 October 2024. New adult gamblers were placed under a monthly deposit limit of €350, while young adults aged up to 24 were limited to €150, with higher-limit requests triggering personal contact and warnings about the risks of losing money.
Under those measures, providers were also required to remind players every 30 minutes about the duration of their session and the applicable limits. When a player wanted to deposit more than €700 a month, or more than €300 for a young adult, the provider had to check whether they could cope with the financial consequences.
