Online Gambling Laws in Holland Facing Change

The new coalition Dutch government has decided to change its stance on online gambling sites, adjusting their current online gaming laws. They have decided to allow offshore casino sites to apply for domestic gambling licenses, going against the last government, which had limited online gaming in an effort to maintain social norms and morals.

These laws led to issues when one of the big online sports betting sites, Betfair, sued the previous government in European Union court. The reasoning was that with those laws, the Dutch government was going against the EU laws on fair and open trade.

At the moment the government controls a state-run lottery site as well as the land based casinos in the country with the help of a law which limits Dutch bank actions. The US has a law which the Dutch law is similar to, called the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which doesn't allow banks to deal with foreign online casino sites.

This ban hasn't ended online betting through illegal sites, as thousands of Dutch citizens frequent these sites to the extent that in the previous year's FIFA World Cup there were more betters from Holland than there had ever been. This statistic is similar to the US as both countries have players using online casino and online poker sites despite limitations set up by the government.

The Dutch state secretary of security and justice, Fredrik Teeven, told Parliament that providing licenses would allow the government to control online gambling rather than letting illegal activity continue. A spokesman for the Dutch ministry of public safety and justice, Jaap Oosterveer, stated that this step was a "big shift" from the previous conservative laws.