Dutch lawmakers lag on iGaming regulations as pressure mounts

The Dutch lawmakers are under pressure from European Union to change the gambling regulatory framework. To be precise, it was in 2002 that the European Commission first urged the Netherlands to restructure its gambling regulatory framework in a way that would also allow foreign gambling companies to start their services in the country. For their part, the Dutch lawmakers started towards this end only in 2015 and based on the evidence so far, it is still slow going. Back in April 2006, the EC sent a request for information on national legislation restricting the provision of online betting and gaming services to seven Member States, with the Netherlands being one of them. Commissioners later on confirmed that they considered the country’s gambling regulations inconsistent with Article 49 of the EC Treaty for the free movement of services within the borders of the union.

It took a while before Dutch lawmakers crafted a gambling legislation that contained online gambling legalisation provisions. What became known as the Draft Bill on Remote Gambling was approved by the Dutch House in the summer of 2016. However, Senate lawmakers will too need to give the nod to the piece of legislation before it takes effect.

Lawmakers indicated last year that the long overdue Senate vote might eventually occur in 2018 and the Remote Gambling Act might come into force in early 2019. However, it seems that there was little progress during the first quarter of the year towards the eventual legalisation of online gambling in the country.

It also became clear during these three months that the Dutch Gaming Authority (Kansspelautoriteit) has grown a bit frustrated with the delayed implementation of the Remote Gambling Act.