The Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) has published two research reports and accompanying guidance on how online gambling operators must handle personal interviews with at-risk players and notifications for registration in the Central Register for Exclusion from Gambling (Cruks), following an investigation conducted across the licensed market in 2025.
What the Guidance Covers
The KSA carried out two studies in 2025 focused on specific duty of care obligations: the conduct of personal interviews (persoonlijk onderhoud) when problematic gambling behaviour is suspected, and the process for submitting Cruks registration notifications when players fail to act on an operator’s advice to self-exclude.
The findings were presented to licence holders during a roundtable held in December 2025, where operators identified practical difficulties in implementation. The KSA has now published both studies alongside formal guidance documents intended to give licensees clearer instructions on their obligations.
The new guidance does not introduce any additional legal requirements. It clarifies how existing rules apply in practice, specifying the timing and format of personal interviews, and setting out what information operators must include when submitting a Cruks notification.
Inconsistent Implementation Across the Market
The KSA’s investigation found that operators are applying these measures inconsistently. On personal interviews, the regulator identified low player response rates as a recurring problem. Separately, the KSA noted that some operators respond to a Cruks advice by blocking the player’s account at their own platform rather than completing the full notification process. The regulator’s position is that account-level blocking is insufficient: a player who is blocked at one operator can continue to gamble freely across the rest of the licensed market without any wider protection mechanism being activated.
On Cruks notifications, operators told the KSA they struggle to verify whether a player has followed through on self-exclusion advice, and face uncertainty about exactly when a notification must be filed. The guidance addresses both questions, setting out the point at which a notification becomes mandatory and the information required for a valid submission.
The KSA sent information requests to all 26 licensed operators as part of the Cruks study. The regulator reported that almost all held adequate policies in this area. Improvement commitments were made with two operators whose policies were found to be absent or insufficient.
Duty of Care Remains a 2026 Priority
The publication sits within the KSA’s wider supervisory agenda for 2026, which lists duty of care as one of five enforcement priorities alongside tackling illegal gambling, protecting vulnerable groups, advertising compliance, and AML obligations under the Wwft. The regulator has stated it will continue to monitor how operators apply play limits, how quickly they analyse behavioural signals, and how promptly they intervene when risk indicators emerge.
KSA Chair Michel Groothuizen, speaking at the Annual Gaming Industry Event in Amsterdam in January, indicated that average high deposits have been falling since the introduction of mandatory affordability checks and net deposit limits. He attributed the improvement in part to the tightened regulatory framework, while noting that many enforcement cases currently being processed relate to conduct that predates the stricter rules.
“Although things are improving, there’s still plenty to do. The duty of care will therefore remain a key priority for the KSA in 2026.”
The KSA has also indicated it will publish separate guidance on the use of AI and monitoring tools by operators later in 2026, as part of its effort to standardise how licensees detect and respond to behavioural risk signals.
The Dutch market is approaching a significant structural inflection point: the first cohort of remote gambling licences, issued in September 2021, expires on 30 September 2026. Operators seeking renewal will be assessed under the new Remote Gambling Policy Rules 2026, which require submission of an exit plan and an AML risk analysis, and which place compliance history, including duty of care performance, under greater scrutiny than the original licensing process.
For operators in the Netherlands, the published guidance on personal interviews and Cruks notifications represents a compliance floor ahead of that renewal cycle, not a ceiling. The KSA has indicated it expects performance to continue improving as the regulatory framework matures.
Source: Kansspelautoriteit
