The legitimate market for online gambling has grown again over the past six months. Total game results (BSR; equity ratio minus prize money paid) increased, but this growth was less than the previously measured period. The number of player accounts that actually played the game was virtually the same, and as a result, the market is expected to grow flat in two years.

This can be seen in the fifth monitoring report (pdf, 204kB) on online gambling published today by the Game Administration (Ksa). BSR totaled €22.23 billion between August 1 and July 33. As a result, the market has grown again, but growth has been lower than before. BSR grew 33% from August 2022 to January 2023. It was 8% from January 2023 to August 2023.

René Jansen, President of the Game Agency: 파친코
“This fifth surveillance report shows that the gambling market continues to grow, even if it is flat. This means that the market is expected to develop. Continuous growth is creating more and more accountability for providers. The KSA continues to strictly monitor Dutch players to gamble in a safe market with full attention to addiction prevention and insights into potentially problematic game behavior. Caution and addiction prevention obligations are an important part of our supervision.”

the number of players
The Netherlands played with 2023,826 active accounts in July. Six months ago in January, there were 859,000 accounts. The number of accounts doesn’t say anything directly about the number of players because players can use more than one account. Ksa estimates in its latest report that 676,000 Dutch people have gambled online in the past six months. This is 4.7% of the adult population. An average of 417,000 Dutch people gamble a month.

New Calculation Method
According to previous monitoring reports, players lost an average of 310 euros a month. This number is based only on a month in which the players actually played, but it does not provide a clear picture of the players’ long-term losses. For example, the total loss after six months cannot be calculated from that number. Therefore, the KSA has now calculated total losses in the long term (in this case, half a year). From January to July 2023, the average is €1017 per player, which translates into €170 per month.

Channeling
When opening an online market, the goal was that at least 8 out of 10 people would play with legal service providers after opening in a safe environment with a lot of coverage in addiction prevention. This goal is still being met: 93% of players only play through the legal website (up 1% from the previous 6 months). Almost all new players (98%) who didn’t play before the market opening only play with legal service providers.

young people
The fifth monitoring report also looked specifically at the proportion of young people. In July 2023, I gambled using 170,000 of my total accounts. This is equivalent to 21% of the total number of accounts. That’s a slight decrease compared to January when we played games with 184,000 accounts. Young people account for 9.4% of the total adult population, so the number of accounts per player is relatively high, according to the Dutch statistics office. Loss per account per month is 59 euros.

Crooks
The number of people on the Central Chance Game Exclusion Register (Cruks) continues to grow. Registered players will not participate in online and country-specific dangerous chance games with all legal providers in the Netherlands for at least 6 months (also possible in the long term). More than 48,000 people were in Crooks in August (as of monitoring reports). The number is now above 50,000 when the September report was released.

Advertising
Previous monitoring reports did not mention a ban on targeted advertising for online gambling, but a shift from TV to online is already being observed, television advertising dropped to zero with the introduction of the ban on July 1, and only the expression “program sponsorship” exists on television, which is allowed until July 1, 2024.