Dutch regulator fines Casino.com €450k for online gambling antics

Dutch gambling regulators have doled out another six-figure financial penalty to an operator serving local punters without a local license.

On Tuesday, the Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) regulatory body announced it had imposed a €450k penalty on Gibraltar-based Onisac Ltd, which operates the Casino.com gambling site. The KSA maintains that the operator is guilty of offering online games of chance to Netherlands residents in violation of the current rules.

The KSA broke down the financial penalty as follows: €200k was imposed due to the site offering online games of chance without local permission. An additional €200k was imposed because this wasn’t Onisac’s first trip to the KSA’s penalty box, having been similarly penalized way back in 2013. (Onisac appealed this 2013 ruling but found no sympathizers on Dutch court benches.)

The remaining €50k penalty was imposed due to the site charging its customers “unreasonable administration costs.” These charges included a 5% monthly administration fee if a customer’s account was inactive for over 180 days. The inactivity fees ranged from a minimum of €15 to a maximum of €500 and continued until the customer’s account was fully drained of funds. The KSA viewed this practice as “an unreasonable disadvantage for consumers.”