The Netherlands Gambling Authority, Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) has fined Blue High House SA for offering unlicensed online gambling in the Dutch market.
According to the KSA’s announcement, Blue High House allows customers in the Netherlands to gamble through its concreteline.ag website. The company is not licensed or approved for online gambling in the Netherlands.
As a result, the KSA has issued an order subject to a financial penalty to the company. The order states that the company must withdraw from the Dutch market or it will face a penalty of €43,000 ($45,332) per week up to a maximum of €129,000 ($135,997).
The regulator revealed that the illegal website came to its attention following analysis of local internet traffic which showed a large volume of Dutch visitors to the company’s website. A further investigation revealed that the company runs several gambling websites all of which are illegal in the Netherlands and target Dutch customers.
The latest order from the KSA follows last week’s issuance of a fine to LCS Limited. The company was fined €2.07 million ($2.2 million) for unlicensed gambling activity.
This brings the total fines for 2023 to more than €388,176,716 ($409,159,587) while the KSA’s fines make up almost €12.8 million ($13.5 million) of that figure. According to the latest figures, 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).