The Kansspelautoriteit (KSA), the Dutch gambling regulator, wants everyone placed under legal guardianship in the Netherlands automatically added to Cruks, the national self-exclusion register. KSA chair Michel Groothuizen set out the proposal this week, alongside plans to extend the minimum Cruks exclusion period from six months to a year.
Guardianship and the exclusion register
Cruks currently holds around 120,000 registrations. People can join voluntarily, or be added by a gambling operator or a family member who submits evidence of gambling-related harm. Groothuizen’s proposal would create a new, automatic route: anyone entered on the Central Guardianship and Administration Register (CCBR) would be added to Cruks for as long as the guardianship lasts.
The CCBR covers people who cannot be trusted to manage their own finances, including those with drug or alcohol addiction under legal guardianship. The Netherlands currently has around 250,000 people under financial administration and a further 25,000 under legal guardianship, a pool that would feed directly into Cruks under the plan.
Groothuizen framed the change as a practical safeguard rather than a punitive one.
“I once heard an addict say he was ‘glad’ to have a gambling addiction because, thanks to Cruks, he could relatively easily keep temptation at bay, something much harder to do with other addictions,” Groothuizen said. “We cannot close the door of the liquor store to the alcoholic, but we certainly can lock the door of the (legal) casino to the (future) addict.”
A longer time-out
Separately, the State Secretary responsible for gambling policy intends to raise the Cruks minimum exclusion period from six months to a year. Groothuizen backed the change and said he would go further.
“That strikes me as a sensible plan,” he said. “Personally, I would even support a longer duration.”
No appetite for income-based limits
Groothuizen used the same statement to rule out one option several European regulators have leaned on: spend limits tied to a player’s income. He argued that deciding how much someone is allowed to lose based on their earnings oversteps what gambling regulation should do.
“Using gambling regulations to implement income policy is difficult and, in my view, undesirable,” he said. “How much should people be allowed to gamble away? Should the government even be deciding that for them? I am very wary of infringing upon citizens’ freedom of choice and of making distinctions based solely on income.”
He drew a comparison to other forms of financial risk-taking that regulators leave untouched.
“If someone wants to make risky yet potentially lucrative investments, such as buying SpaceX shares in the hope that the ‘Tesla miracle’ will repeat itself and make them a millionaire, it is their money and their choice,” he said. “If someone prefers to gamble away their grandfather’s inheritance rather than use it to buy a home, it is undoubtedly unwise, but it is their money and their choice.”
Smartphones changed the calculation
Groothuizen opened his statement by comparing gambling’s current trajectory to drinking’s decline in social acceptability. He said the shift has gone in the opposite direction for gambling since smartphones put sportsbooks and online casinos within constant reach.
“It is now unimaginable that, fifty years ago, my father would get behind the wheel feeling fresh and alert after five or six beers without anyone batting an eye,” he said. “I have seen the normalisation of drinking decline sharply since my youth. With gambling, however, the trend is the exact opposite. The barrier to giving in to the urge has become very low.”
Neither proposal has a confirmed implementation date. The exclusion-period extension sits with the State Secretary, and the automatic CCBR-to-Cruks link would need its own legislative or regulatory route before guardianship courts and gambling operators can act on it. Groothuizen’s statement puts both changes on the table as the KSA’s next move on player protection.
Source: Kansspelautoriteit
