Dr Alan Littler, gaming lawyer at Kalff Katz & Franssen, provides an update on changes to gaming regulation in the Netherlands.
AS previously described in Remote gaming – towards a regulatory regime (iNTERGAMINGi Issue 4, 2013) the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice (“Ministry”) published a proposed bill for the regulation of remote gaming on May 22, 2013.
The objective of this exercise is to amend the primary legislation on which the entire domestic gaming landscape is based, namely the Wet op de kansspelen 1964 (Betting and Gaming Act), so as to introduce a regulatory framework for remote gaming. From the publication of the proposed bill until July 22, 2013, a public consultation period ran during which stakeholders could submit their views on the draft text.
The Ministry has now harvested a substantial number of submissions which it is now digesting. Stakeholders could select for their submission to be treated confidentially or made available for public perusal. In total 52 submissions are available on the government’s internet consultation webpage with a few others scattered across various stakeholders’ websites. The aim of this brief article is to provide an impression of the views contained within those submissions made public which, by and large, represent the views of the incumbent operators but also healthcare organisations, internet service providers and payment service providers.
Given that reform of other areas is on the cards, such as the introduction of a transparent licensing procedure for offline lottery licences and the privatisation of Holland Casino, many incumbents appear uneasy about the piecemeal approach to reform. The impression is given that irreversible change will be unleashed on their business models by the absence of a more integrated approach to reforming the national market. Additionally some incumbents fear that the definition of remote gaming as currently proposed will entail that their “e-commerce” activities, whereby the internet constitutes a distribution channel for services offered offline, will fall within the scope of the proposed regulatory regime. Questions as to the boundaries of remote gaming abound.
Read the full article in the latest issue of iNTERGAMINGi.
