The Netherlands' Gambling Authority, Kansspelautoriteit (KSA), has held a summit with various online gambling operators in order to refine player protection and duty of care best practices.
Recent enforcement action has highlighted numerous failings in those departments from operators in the Netherlands, and research released in September revealed that operators' differing methodologies in assessing risk led to inconsistent results.
A lack of clear guidance within regulations was referenced as being partially to blame for these failings at the time, and improving these was the aim of this session, held on 4 December.
Three recent studies have been conducted to improve player protection, the results of which were shared with the operators at the roundtable.
One pertained to notifications in CRUKS, the Dutch self-exclusion service. Certain triggers mean an operator is obliged to advise a player to register with CRUKS, and at that point, if the player refuses, the operator must report that fact to the KSA.
Research showed that there were barriers preventing operators from submitting those notifications - Holland Casino was held up as a good example in how it operates its notification process.
The other two central points of discussion at the roundtable were personal interviews with players and protocols for closing player accounts - the KSA has stressed that hearing from industry about the obstacles and bottlenecks that prevent these things from happening as they ought to was very constructive.
Ella Seijsener is the Head of the Online Duty of Care Department at the Dutch regulator and commented: "It was good to engage in discussions with the providers. This is educational for the sector and also provides useful input for our oversight."
The authority has stated that it will take any learnings into account as it tries to improve its implementation of effective duty of care measures.
The KSA recently fined Unibet €4m ($4.66) for duty of care failings - the operator was fined £10m in the UK for similar infractions
