KSA data shows Dutch online gambling market still contracting
Two years after the Netherlands imposed mandatory deposit limits, regulator Kansspelautoriteit reports falling online gaming revenue and signs that players are opening multiple accounts to get around the caps.
The Dutch gambling regulator Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) has published figures showing the country's licensed online gambling market remains smaller than before the introduction of mandatory deposit limits in October 2024, according to SBC News.
The KSA issued two separate reports: one covering the full licensed gambling market across 2025, and a second focused specifically on the online sector in the first half of 2026.
Under the rules introduced in October 2024, monthly spending is capped at €300 a month for young adults, rising to a €700 monthly ceiling for everyone aged 24 and above.
For 2025 as a whole, the KSA recorded an 18.2% drop in online casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) and a 30.2% fall in sports betting GGR, SBC News reported. The sports betting decline was partly attributed to a higher comparative baseline set during UEFA Euro 2024.
The regulator's H1 2026 figures show the deposit limits continuing to reshape player behaviour well into their second year of operation.
Total active player accounts rose from 1.38 million in the second half of 2025 to 1.48 million in the first half of 2026, an increase of 7.2%.
Over the same period, the number of individual players fell from 830,000 to 820,000, a drop of 1.2%, while monthly active individual players declined from 510,000 to 490,000, down 3.9%. The share of the adult population gambling online stayed flat at between 5% and 6%.
The gap between rising account numbers and falling individual player numbers points to Dutch gamblers opening accounts with multiple licensed operators, a workaround that allows them to exceed the deposit limits imposed on any single platform.
A separate discrepancy emerged between player channelisation and revenue channelisation. The KSA found that between 94% and 97% of players gamble exclusively or partly on licensed Dutch platforms, suggesting a largely channelised player base.
Yet the regulator estimated that licensed providers accounted for only 59% of actual H1 2026 revenue, a far lower figure than the player-count channelisation rate would suggest.
The gap implies that the 3% to 6% of players operating outside licensed channels are losing considerably more money, on average, than those who stick to regulated platforms, according to the data reported by SBC News.
The figures add to an ongoing debate in the Netherlands over whether strict affordability-style limits are pushing a meaningful share of spend towards unlicensed operators even as most players remain within the regulated market by headcount.