Chapter 2: Market overviews
gaming income in 2015, representing a 7.6% growth when compared to the estimated €275m in
revenue in 2014. Additionally, the KSA believes that an estimated 437,000 Dutch residents out of
the country’s 17m population will have gambled online in 2015 even though current legislation to
regulate digital gaming has yet to be adopted.
The report stated: “The size of the market has grown significantly in the period 2003 to 2015.”
The KSA also points out that despite this growth, gaming enthusiasts in the Netherlands still prefer
land-based casinos in larger numbers when compared to the rest of Europe.
“However, despite this strong growth the size of the online market is 13% of the total gambling
market, slightly lower than the proportion of online in Europe,” says the KSA in its report.
In November 2015, a new survey suggested the Netherlands online gambling market could be
significantly larger than previous estimates.
The survey, which was conducted by Motivaction on behalf of state-owned brick-and-mortar casino
operator Holland Casino, suggests that as many as 1.5m Dutch adults gamble online, spending an
average of €26 per month for a total annual spend of around €500m. Previous studies had suggested
the market was worth closer to €300m per year.
Motivaction said its survey numbers indicate that around 700,000 Dutch adults indulge in games like
bingo, poker, roulette, blackjack or sports betting via online sites three times or less per year, while
another 800,000 partake four times or more.
Holland Casino suggested Motivaction’s numbers might actually undervalue the Dutch online market.
The operator pointed to Denmark, which has a population one-third the size of the Netherlands, yet
Danish online gambling revenue totalled €338m in just the first nine months of 2015. Extrapolating
those numbers, Holland Casino suggests the Netherlands’ digital gaming market could be worth over
€1bn per year.
The numbers are all the more impressive given that online gaming is currently illegal in the
Netherlands. There’s no shortage of sites that continue to offer digital services to Dutch punters in
defiance of local authorities but the country’s new licensed online gambling regime isn’t expected to
come into being until 2017.
Dutch gaming regulator Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) isn’t wasting this calm before the storm, announcing
that it was one of 20 European Economic Area gaming regulators to sign an agreement promising
greater cooperation in exchanging information regarding cross-border aspects of gambling. The
parties have agreed to help each other guard against harms like fraud, match-fixing and money
laundering, while also pledging to “reduce unnecessary administrative burdens.”
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