Dutch minister confirms cooling off period for “cowboy” operators

A Dutch minister pushing for online gambling legislation has called on operators to “show they can behave” to be eligible for a licence in the Netherlands.

Issuing a written response to questions raised during last week’s Dutch parliamentary debate, Sander Dekker singled out operators using Dutch domain names, Dutch focused advertising and payment methods such as iDeal as being “cowboys”.

Dekker confirmed he would temporarily ban licence applications from these operators, although he said they could potentially become eligible for licensing if they would demonstrate “reliability during one consecutive period prior” to the licence application.

It is unclear exactly how long the cooling off period would be but Dekker has said in previous speeches on this issue that it could be as much as two years.

Addressing advertising questions, Dekker said a complete ban on gambling advertising is “undesirable” because advertising is necessary to guide players from illegal gambling sites to legal licensed operators.

He said that advertising for live betting would be “forbidden” during the match in question and all gambling advertising on TV would be banned from 6am in the morning until 7pm in the evening.

Answering the question concerning potential ISP blocking of illegal websites, Dekker confirmed that the new Dutch remote gaming bill would enable the Dutch gambling authority to block egaming sites, however Dekker called ISP blocking an “extremely limited” method of tackling illegal gambling.

The Dutch senate is due to hold a final vote on passage of the Remote Gambling bill and the Casino Privatisation Bill on Tuesday.