(AsiaGameHub) – By: Elena Rostova
The Dutch state has stopped pretending it can coax the gambling machine into safer motion. Claudia van Bruggen has chosen instead to smother its voice with ad bans and caps. She believes force will do what years of polite limits could not.
The 2021 Remote Gaming Act first welcomed licensed operators. The count rose past thirty by 2024. Advertisements chased every screen until lawmakers banned role models in 2022. Untargeted ads vanished from airwaves and billboards last July. Sports sponsorships were strangled this July. Van Bruggen now wants every billboard and screen dark. Bonuses at sign-up will die with them.
Deposit ceilings will sit above every wallet. Players must prove sound finances to nudge them upward. Checks will scan for guardianship or third-party oversight and missed payments. A trial system is under construction. These rules extend limits Franc Weerwind set in 2024. Players aged eighteen to twenty-three were capped at €150. Others faced €350. Requests to raise limits have already fallen below half of all users. Monthly breaches dropped from 9.7 percent to 2.2 percent. Losses slid from €116 to €80.
CRUKS self-exclusion is being sharpened so users may lock themselves out forever. Relatives and carers will find it simpler to register others. Care teams will link closer to the system. Yet taxes at 37.8 percent of gross gaming revenue have pushed eyes toward unlicensed sites. The legal share of Dutch gambling fell to roughly 49 percent this year. Black markets now soak up a quarter of all play. Van Bruggen vows to block illegal websites and squeeze payment pipes that feed them.
State force rarely shrinks appetite. It only redirects supply.
Author bio: Elena Rostova, a public policy expert specializing in compliance assessments for governments or sovereign wealth funds.