New Policy Rules for granting remote gambling licenses from 1 January 2026

What has changed?
New requirements apply to all license applicants. For example, an application must include a document explaining how providers plan to inform the Ksa in a timely manner about important changes to their policy and operations. Applicants must also now include an exit plan explaining how they will reduce their gaming offerings if the license expires.

Furthermore, an important addition has been made regarding reliability: if providers have not complied with final or provisionally enforceable court judgments at the time of their application, their reliability is not beyond doubt. This is grounds for refusing a license. Providers must also now submit a Wwft risk analysis with their application.

Subsequent License
A separate application procedure applies to applications for a subsequent license by parties already active in the market. In this procedure, various components will be reassessed, including the addiction prevention policy and the recruitment and advertising policy. An integration test will be conducted again for the control database (CDB) component. They must also meet the new conditions that apply to all applications, as mentioned above.

When opening the online market, the legislator deliberately opted to issue licenses with a term of (maximum) 5 years. By using a fixed-term license, the legislator intended that the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (Ksa) would consider supervisory experience gained in each subsequent license application. Providers who have made mistakes in the past 5 years must explain during the application procedure how they have learned from previous mistakes and how they plan to prevent recurrence. If the Ksa finds this explanation insufficient, the license may be refused or additional conditions and restrictions may be imposed.