The Netherlands Gambling Authority (KSA) has hit operator 711 with an €886,000 fine for failing to comply with duty of care requirements.
After an investigation into 10 different player files, the KSA found that 711 had not intervened sufficiently to protect users from gambling harms.
All 10 of the files threw up breaches of the Netherlands’ Gambling Act and are said to have taken place between 2022 and 26 June 2024.
This is the first public announcement of a financial penalty made by the KSA since 10 March, when Fortaprime SRL was fined €1.8m and Novatech a record €24.8m.
However, KSA Chairman Michel Groothuizen hinted that the action taken against 711 could be part of a wider investigative process from the regulator.
He commented: “We have observed that not all providers implemented their duty of care equally well from the opening of the market. We have therefore conducted additional investigations, which are now resulting in various duty of care fines.”
711 failings
The 10 players whose accounts were monitored by the KSA were selected as they were the players who had suffered the greatest losses between October 2023 and March 2024.
The KSA’s sanction report claims that 711 failed to take sufficient measures to prevent excessive gambling and addiction in each case.
On top of being found to have failed to identify signals of potential gambling harm, the report explains that 711 had acted contrary to its own stated policy, which suggests that the RG team must request a risk analysis if a player loses €2,500.
In these instances, where risk analyses were called for, they were conducted too late for the KSA’s liking.
Median salary comparisons
As can be seen in the KSA’s justifications for the enforcement action, the metric of a ‘median salary’ is being consistently held up as an important gauge by which to judge the duty of care monitoring at an operator.
When heavy losses seem to have been sustained by a player over short periods of time, the regulator measures them in terms of what multiple of the median monthly or yearly salary the figure represents.
For instance, when one player lost €27,000 the KSA noted that: “It is also important in this regard that the player lost an amount exceeding 10 median monthly salaries in four days and had a daily deposit limit of more than seven median monthly salaries, while 711 had no insight whatsoever into the player’s financial position.”
In addition to the fine, it appears the KSA has seen fit to adjust its own approach as a result, with Groothuizen adding: “We have further tightened the requirements regarding the duty of care to prevent excesses such as those we are seeing here in the future.”
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