Great Blue

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The Netherlands online gambling market has been the subject of many column inches and much speculation thanks to regulation that has been largely described as heavy-handed and perhaps a little short-sighted – even by the country’s own regulator.

The triumvirate of Netherlands, Germany and Sweden is often held up as an example of how not to regulate, with all three countries haemorrhaging players to waiting illegal operators. So what is public sentiment like towards operators? “My feeling is that if you look at public sentiment, they don’t see really the difference between online and land-based,” says Petra. “If you look into what they’re saying, they’re primarily talking online. But for the general public, there is no difference [between the channels] in that respect.”

She believes the sentiment towards gambling among the Dutch public is comparable to the UK, Finland, Germany, France. “So, very tense,” she says.

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It remained Codere Online’s largest market in Q2, generating €36.1 million in NGR, a 24% year-on-year rise. Chief Executive Aviv Sher said the company would continue investing as the market grows more competitive.

In an April interview with iGB, Sher reflected on the challenges of regulatory uncertainty in Mexico

“Right now we are working based on a framework of laws which you cannot even call regulation, from 1947,” Sher said. “So it’s very hard to work long-term and to give long-term commitments. While the future is unclear in terms of regulation, we saw what happened in other countries in LatAm when they changed the regulation every other month.

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Spillemyndigheden said it contributed actively to this work and sat on FATF’s gaming sector working group. The regulator confirmed that many of the indicators in the report carry relevance for operators licensed in Denmark.

FATF’s warning on illegal and offshore gambling will resonate in Denmark. Last year, Spillemyndigheden secured a court order to block 178 unlicensed gambling sites, the largest such action in the regulator’s history. 

The case highlighted how illegal operators disguise their presence through multiple site variations, a tactic the FATF report also flags as a red flag indicator.