Netherlands

Gambling in the Netherlands is governed by the Betting and Gaming Act and the Remote Gambling Act ("Koa Act"), which opened a licensed online market on 1 October 2021 under the Kansspelautoriteit (KSA). Online sports betting is a regulated, competitive market: operators must hold a KSA remote licence, enforce the CRUKS self-exclusion register, verify players are 18+, and meet advertising and responsible-gambling rules tightened for 2026. Horse-race betting is regulated: the land-based totalisator is a single monopoly licence, held by ZEbetting & Gaming Nederland B.V. for 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2027 and offered only at physical sales outlets, while betting on horse and trotting races online is one of the products a KSA remote licence can cover. Prediction markets and event-contract exchanges are classified by the KSA as games of chance requiring a licence; because such platforms are unlicensed and the KSA has indicated they are not permissible even for licensed operators, they are effectively prohibited — demonstrated by a February 2026 penalty order against Polymarket.

Many of the largest international operators are licensed in the Netherlands under the Remote Gambling Act, which opened the licensed online market on 1 October 2021. Online gambling is no longer forbidden: the Remote Gambling Act (Wet Kansspelen op afstand) legalised and regulates it. Those laws changed on 1 October 2021, when the market for legal online gambling opened and players gained access to licensed Dutch betting sites.

Netherlands Betting Sites

Total Dutch gambling revenue is impressive considering the country’s relatively small population of 17 million. Monopoly gambling provider Holland Casino contributes roughly 300 million euros a year to the treasury as a result of its real world and online gaming operations. Holland Casino operates 14 brick-and-mortar casinos across the country.

Almost all forms of gambling are legal in the Netherlands but the government maintains strict control over the industry. Holland Casino still holds the land-based casino monopoly and the land-based totalisator for horse and trotting races is a single licence held by ZEbetting & Gaming Nederland B.V., but online sports betting and online horse-race betting are now open to any operator that holds a KSA remote-gambling licence.

The Netherlands Gaming Authority oversees all online gambling activities in the country and is the regulator of the licensing framework, which is an open system in which every applicant — Dutch or foreign — that meets the conditions receives a licence. Since the market opened on 1 October 2021 a long list of private operators holds a KSA remote licence alongside the state-owned Toto — the Kansspelautoriteit announced the first ten online licences in the week the market opened.

The Remote Gambling Act took effect and the legal online market opened on 1 October 2021.

How the Remote Gambling Act Became Law

Word of a new online gambling bill has been circulating the internet for over a year, but things took a major step forward in July of 2016. It was then that the lower house of parliament voted in favour of the Remote Gaming Bill and passed it on to the Senate for a quick “yes” vote as well.

The Remote Gaming Bill set out to formally legalize online gambling, regulate the activity and issue licenses to operators. Unlike bills proposed in some other countries, it gave no favourable treatment to local gaming companies: operators from other parts of the world were free to apply, and local brick-and-mortar companies were barred from using existing customer databases to gain an advantage over new applicants headquartered elsewhere. The system that resulted is an open one, in which every applicant that meets the conditions receives a licence.

The bill was expected to be made into law at some point in the latter half of 2017 but Dutch authorities have failed to move at anything beyond a glacial pace and that projection has been pushed back since then.

Despite the multiple delays, Netherlands Gaming Authority Vice Chairman Henk Kessler was at the time confident that new laws could be implemented by January of 2019.

That prediction ended up proving just about on the money, with the Dutch Senate approving the Remote Gambling Bill in February 2019. The first Dutch online licences in fact came in 2021: the Kansspelautoriteit announced ten of them in the week the legal online market opened on 1 October 2021.

While the bill was being drafted, operators were optimistic for the most part but expressed concerns about tax rates. One version of the proposed Remote Gaming Bill called for a 29% tax on gross gaming revenue. That means gaming websites (and land-based casinos) would pay nearly a third of their income in taxes before they even account for expenses.

Previous versions of the bill called for an online gambling tax rate of 20% of gross gaming revenue, but local casinos complained that this would give online operators an unfair advantage as local casinos are already subject to a 29% rate. Lawmakers acquiesced and raised the online gaming rate to 29% in order to subject everyone to the same tax rate.

Although the new rate was considered “fair,” it did not take into account that the Dutch gambling market would soon be open to competition from around the world. Unlicensed Dutch betting sites would not be subject to those taxes and could easily undercut licensed operators with better bonuses, lower rake and so on.

Current Situation in the Netherlands

Dutch players now have a licensed online market to play in, but the KSA still estimates that only about half of all money gambled in the Netherlands goes to legal operators. An operator that takes Dutch players without a KSA licence breaches Dutch law whatever licence it holds elsewhere: online games of chance may be offered in the Netherlands only under a licence granted on the basis of article 31a of the Betting and Gaming Act.

Dutch enforcement is aimed at operators rather than individual players: the KSA's position is that an operator without a KSA licence has no business on the Dutch market, and in February 2026 it imposed a penalty order on Polymarket for offering games of chance without a licence. However, the government has attempted to make it more difficult to access offshore sites with proposed banking laws that would have require banks to block gambling related transactions. The banking industry ignored those requests as they deemed the process illegal and unenforceable.

Today many of the world’s largest betting sites are open for business in the Netherlands under a KSA licence — the licensing system is open to all applicants that meet the conditions — while operators without a licence are pursued by the regulator.

In more recent years, the government has taken new steps to combat unlicensed gambling in the Netherlands. Lawmakers once ordered Dutch banks to stop doing business with gaming sites, but the banking industry refused to comply. Later, the government banned advertising for offshore betting sites and announced a plan to crackdown on mobile apps that are viewed to facilitate real money betting.

The head of the Netherlands Gambling Authority finally took a small step forward in 2017 during an address to a gaming conference that year. During his speech, the head of the commission outlined basic goals that they would like to achieve with gambling regulation. To summarize, those goals are to establish a licensing system capable of qualifying suitable applicants and setting up a system capable of ensuring licensed betting sites adhere to all regulations.

Of course, the head of the commission also urged for patience during the speech; the licensing system he described opened on 1 October 2021.

Payment Methods

The simplest option for depositing and withdrawing in the Netherlands is iDEAL. The iDEAL system is an e-commerce online payment processor that is intertwined with the Dutch banking system. Nearly every leading Dutch bank works with iDEAL to process online payments. iDEAL processes over $70 million in transfers each year in the Netherlands.

Other methods are also available including credit cards and online e-wallets such as Neteller and Skrill. Players from the Netherlands should have no issue making deposits and getting paid.

What the Dutch Are Betting On

Football is the most popular sport in the Netherlands by a large margin. There are 10 levels of football, but punters mostly enjoy betting on the top two divisions, the Eredivsie and Eerste Divisie, which stand for the Honorary Division and First Division, respectively. They also enjoy betting on international matches and other popular leagues such as the English Premier League and La Liga.

Sports betting is the smallest sector of the Dutch gambling market, at a 9% market share, of which 7 percentage points are online, while online casino games against the house make up the largest share of online gambling revenue. Past iGaming Business estimates put the total gambling market at a value of €2.3 billion. Brick-and-mortar gambling still accounts for the lion’s share of that number, but online betting is slowly closing the gap.

The Market Looking Forward

The Netherlands completed its move to full legalization and regulation on 1 October 2021. In May 2013, the Dutch Finance Ministry revealed details of a law drafted to allow foreign operators to apply for Dutch licenses. Passage of the Dutch Remote Gambling Act paved the way for residents to play online poker, bet on sports and play casino games at legal and regulated betting websites.

Multiple delays have pushed implementation back numerous times since the original proposal. Initially, many reports had it that online gambling in the Netherlands would be fully regulated by January 1st, 2015.

The regime went live on 1 October 2021, and the KSA acts against operators that offer online games of chance to Dutch players without a Dutch licence.

Interest in the regulated market has been high since the beginning. Within 2 years of the proposal, more than 200 betting sites have lined up as potential applicants for licensing. Those familiar with the industry show little surprise.

Even offline gambling still has questions that need answering. For example, a pair of poker players were arrested back in 2007 for organizing a poker tournament in the real world.

Then, two years after that, the Amsterdam Court of Appeals overturned the lower court’s ruling and declared that poker is indeed a form of gambling. This latest ruling killed the building excitement among poker players that people could begin hosting tournaments in the real world once again. As it stands now, it remains illegal for anyone other than Holland Casino to hold real money poker tournaments.