Event

Gaming In Holland Conference

Olympic Stadium, Amsterdam – Netherlands

Event Information

Gaming in Holland Conference 2012 - show report

The first Gaming in Holland Conference took place on June 5 in the Olympic Stadium of Amsterdam, where a range of gaming-related topics was discussed by a variety of guests.

A popular topic was the upcoming election on September 12. With the new Gaming Authority having started April 1, one of the main topics was the effect the elections will have on the original plans of the State Secretary for a new gaming policy.

The day started with a word of welcome by Willem van Oort, CEO of Gran Via Online, after which Justin Franssen highlighted the most important legal and regulatory elements in the path to online gaming in the Netherlands. Depending on the outcomes of the elections, Franssen expects remote gambling licences to be available by 2013 or 2014. After his presentation, he went on to participate in a debate on the future of online regulation in the Netherlands with Dr. Morten Roende, CEO of the Danish Online Gambling Association, and Eric van Vondelen, former secretary of the Gaming Control Board of the Netherlands and now independent gaming advisor. Roende shared Franssen’s optimism, stating that the gaming market has grown beyond expectation and pointing to the fact that online gaming doesn’t cause cannibalisation of the old casino monopolies. Van Vondelen, however, was slightly more cautious. He expects online regulation not to be completed before 2015 at the earliest. In the original plans of the now demissionary State Secretary, the Senate would have voted for online regulation in May this year. This would probably have raised aproximately €10m for the government. Now, with elections coming up, the future of online regulation has become uncertain.

Head of i-gaming compliance at Dictao Gregory Kuhlmey, along with Ben Verhoeff, went on to participate in a panel discussion on compliance, safety and security in online gaming. They stated that the threats for online gaming do not differ too much from offline gaming, and that the internet offers additional tools for fighting fraud and identity theft and protecting safety. Kuhlmey noted, however, the ‘right to be forgotten’. Companies should remove all the data from a certain player a few years after the player has closed his account.

A session about taxation of online gaming in a regulated market included participants Frans Duynstee, managing partner at VMW Taxand, and Pedro Fernandez, partner from Garrigues Spain. Discussing the options, Fernandez pointed out that in Spain, different gross tax rates apply for different types of online games, while in Holland, there is a flat rate of 29 per cent. Duynstee pointed out that the fact that the Netherlands has a tax rate for online gaming while the act of engaging in online gaming is forbidden, is highly curious. Moreover, the Court of Haarlem has ordered that the distinction between the tax regime of Dutch online games and European online games is against the EU law protecting freedom of services.

A debate on responsible gaming saw Pieter Remmers, the founder of Assissa (responsible gaming consultancy and training), present his perspective on responsible gaming in an online environment. He has sympathy for a model of self-exclusion, which protects the player and prevents him from misery, but he prefers a situation in which the ‘informed choice model’ is dominant. In this model, the player takes responsibility for his own gaming behaviour.

The next topic was media and marketing of online gaming and betting. Participants Reinout te Brake, CEO and founder of IQU.com, Jasper Hoekert, Strategy Director Performance at Omnicon, and Bob van Oosterhout, founder and owner of TripleDouble, discussed the possibilities online gaming offers. TripleDouble is the marketing partner of Unibet, helping it to market itself in the Netherlands. In so doing, it looks for ‘fan engagement’, as the difference between the traditional actors in the triangle - consumer, media, brand - has flawed. At present, the monopolist gaming companies account for €15m in sport sponsoring, on a total market of between €850m and €1bn. The expectation is that once there is regulation, affiliate marketing becomes less prominent in online gaming, with companies switching to sports sponsorships. The same happened in France, where after regulation, online gaming companies engaged in sponsorship for between €50m and €75m. Van Oosterhout does not expect online gaming companies to cannibalise the contribution offline monopolistic companies have in sports.

The poker session, moderated by former poker professional Rolf Slotboom (now spokesperson of the Dutch Poker Federation), had two participants - Thomas Bakker of Bakker and Davidowitz Consulting, and Kaj Emanuel of the youth department of Dutch political party D66. In discussing the regulation of online poker, Slotboom advocated the three main parties - players, companies and government - shouldn’t overask. If they don’t, agreement could be reached.

Emanuel outlined the internal debate his party had when discussing the possible regulation of online poker. Bakker expressed his hope for fast regulation. In the actual situation, the player is at risk losing money in case of bad practice of his poker client, such as happened with Full Tilt Poker. The final session of the day was a presentation of Fredrik Kjell, head of product at Ongame Sweden. The main challenges in mobile gaming are the use of multiple platforms, regulatory compliance and Apple store approval. The latter is the most difficult as Apple tends to block apps from countries without regulation.