The Netherlands gambling authority, de Kansspelautoriteit (KSA), has fined Entain-owned gambling operator Betent €400,000 for rules breaches that included targeting young adults in its marketing campaigns.
Following an investigation, the KSA discovered that Betent placed a TV commercial directly after the broadcast of popular TV program Kassa between October 2021 and March 2022. The KSA deemed that this was a direct attempt to market its products and services to the young adult age bracket of 18-24 year olds. This is prohibited by local gambling advertising restrictions.
The investigation also revealed that from October 8th, 2021 to March 16th, 2022, Betent sent messages to its customer base promoting online games of chance that are available on its own website Betcity.nl. These messages also targeted young adults.
This is the fourth time in the past six months that the KSA has fined a gambling operator for targeting young adults with promotions. In March of this year bet365 was fined €400,000 while in January JOI Gaming was also fined the same amount. In November of 2022, Toto Online was also fined €400,000 for a similar breach.
Speaking of the fine, René Jansen, chairperson of the KSA said:
‘The law prohibits games of chance providers from targeting young adults with advertising. The Gaming Authority is closely monitoring this and with these four sanctions it once again underlines how important it is that providers of games of chance respect the rules that are intended to protect vulnerable target groups.’
This brings the total fines for 2023 to more than €55.6 million while the KSA’s fines make up almost €8.9 million of that figure.
According to industry fines tracker website GamblingIndustryFines.com, gambling industry fines in 2022 came to €251,712,034 / $269,532,490 – a significant increase of 443.9% compared to 2021’s total of €44,753,969 / $48,642,992.
Ciaran has been working within the Gambling Industry as a deep analyst since 2019. His deep knowledge and understanding of all the gambling regulations, and processes makes him a true asset, and an always valuable point of view for Gambling Industry News, allowing us to cover every topics from a brand new perspective.