The Dutch Gaming Authority (KSA) has announced the imposition of a €4m ($4.65m) financial penalty against Unibet, following an investigation which has unearthed duty of care shortcomings across a two-year period.
Indeed, this latest regulatory development relates specifically to Unibet's Optdeck subsidiary, which provides games of chance in the Dutch market.
The regulatory body has discovered that, between the dates of 14 July 2022 and 1 July 2024, Optdeck took inadequate action to intervene with players displaying signs of immoderate gaming behaviour, stating that interventions against players depositing unusual and substantial amounts of money took weeks, within which this time thousands of Euros had already been placed and lost.
It has also been highlighted by the KSA that once interventions were made, they were not of adequate effectiveness - and has now taken the decision to penalise the operator this substantial fee.
Commenting on this latest development, Michel Groothuizen, Chairman of the KSA Board, said: "When there are signs of immoderate gaming behaviour and someone bets a huge amount of money in a short period of time, a provider must investigate the origin of the money in time.
"This can be done by requesting income data. It is essential that providers carry out this analysis adequately, because not all financial resources can be included just like that. The KSA takes violations of the duty of care very seriously and will continue to take tough action against them."
This latest regulatory action against Unibet follows an additional significant financial penalty earned by the operator in early Q4 by the UK's Gambling Commission - which pulled the operator up for continued anti-money laundering and social responsibility failures. Elsewhere, in October, the KSA also handed out a €2.7m fine to BetCity for reported youth protection failures.
Earlier this year the KSA announced its plans to investigate the behavioural influence tactics of online operators in the Dutch market
