Dutch regulator sets end of year deadline for egaming law
Five-hour meeting between Europe's leading operators and regulator in The Hague yesterday will be followed by further consultation in April.
The Dutch gaming regulator has told companies interested in operating in the country that it plans to have its new online gambling legislation finalised in parliament by the end of the year, eGaming Review has learned.
In yesterday’s five-hour meeting in The Hague, attended by representatives from almost all of Europe’s largest operators, the Netherlands Gaming Authority (NGA) set out plans for further consultation in April and a timeline to finalise its egaming laws by the end of this year.
A source that attended the meeting told eGR that the regulator, which confirmed its intentions to legalise egaming in the country in October last year, showed itself to be an “open partner” during a “very pleasant exchange of opinions” moderated by NGA board member Dr Paul Tang.
The attendee list featured almost all of Europe’s biggest operators “ including Bet365, William Hill, PokerStars, Ladbrokes, IGT, Bwin, PKR and Betfair.
Among the matters discussed was responsible gambling and player protection, the need for ongoing industry consultation, the role of software companies and white label products, money laundering and fraud, levels of privacy such as data and information sharing, with the regulator seemingly not keen to follow the Spanish and Danish strategy of linking ID documentation to players’ accounts. Under the Netherland’s comparatively liberal privacy laws it would be unable to enforce such strict identification measures.
Taxation models, however, were not discussed as this responsibility lies with the Ministry of Finance, which was not present at the meeting.
The NGA sent invites for the meeting to international companies interested in becoming licensed in the country’s future egaming market in January, asking them to respond to a number of questions around what they perceive as an acceptable tax rate, how many licences they would expect to be handed out, and how player ID verification should be managed.
The regulations will be subject to a public consultation in April before being examined by the Dutch Council of State, an advisory body on legislation and administrative court. This stage is likely to take three or four months, at which point the legislation will be passed to the Ministry of Security and Justice before being debated in Parliament.
The country’s new coalition government confirmed plans to begin issuing egaming licences before the end of its current term in October, with leaders Mark Rutte and Diederik Samson claiming a tax rate of 29% of GPT would raise 31m a year as part of wide-ranging anti-austerity measures in the European Union member state. It is widely agreed that this rate, currently applied to land-based gaming, is likely to be lowered in a similar way to the Danish on and offline gaming industries prior to online regulation on 1 January 2012.
The Danish market officially opened in December 2011, with 38 companies were awarded operating licences, while seven local businesses were given income-restricted approval.
According to research firm and eGR data partners H2 Gambling Capital, a regulated Dutch interactive market would be worth 223m by 2015.