Dutch gambling market still adjusting to 2024 reforms

The mandatory monthly deposit limits introduced in the Netherlands in 2024 have led to a contraction in the online gaming market, regulator Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) has reported. The gambling authority has released two sets of reports covering the entirety of 2025 and the first half of 2026, focusing on the entire licensed Dutch gambling market and exclusively on the online sector, respectively. Data points to a shrinking in the online gambling economy, evidenced by both tax collections and player behaviour. In October 2024, the Dutch government introduced monthly deposit limits capped at €300 for young adults and €700 for everyone aged 24 and above. For the year following the changes, the KSA has reported that online GGR in 2025 dropped noticeably by 18.2% for online casino and 30.2% for sports betting, although the contraction of the latter was also partially driven by the higher baseline during UEFA Euro 2024. Meanwhile, the impact of the deposit limits continued to cause market shifts in the months January-June 2026 as well, leading to changes in player behaviour. Total active player accounts did rise from 1.38 million in H2 2025 to 1.48 million in H1 2026 (up 7.2%). However, for the same comparative period, individual players dropped from 830,000 to 820,000 (down 1.2%), monthly active individual players fell from 510,000 to 490,000 (down 3.9%), and the population share of adults gambling online remained flat at 5%-6%. The difference between the uptick in total active player accounts and the decrease in individual players suggests that Dutch online gamblers are continuously opening multiple accounts across licensed operators to circumvent the deposit limits introduced in October 2024. A notable discrepancy has also been established between the player channelisation rates and actual licenced revenue channelisation. While the KSA reported a healthy player count of between 94% and 97% of customers playing exclusively or partly on licensed legal platforms, the actual H1 2026 revenue from licensed providers estimated by the regulator was 59%. One takeaway from the above would be that the 3%-6% of players sitting outside of the channelisation statistics incur much heavier financial losses on average than those who gamble on licensed platforms.