The Supreme Court of the Netherlands has ruled that contracts between online gambling operators and their customers signed before the market’s 2021 re-regulation cannot be declared void, closing off the main route former players had used to reclaim historic losses.
In its 3 July judgment, the Hoge Raad found that the wording and structure of the Betting and Gaming Act (WOK) of 1964 do not make customer transactions with operators unlicensed at the time invalid. That covers bets placed and casino play carried out before the Remote Gambling Act (KOA) opened a licensed online market on 1 October 2021.
The ruling answered preliminary questions referred by the District Court of Amsterdam and the District Court of North Holland. In both, former customers argued that the agreements they entered into with pre-2021 operators should be annulled and their losses returned, because those operators held no Dutch licence under the WOK regime. The court rejected that reasoning, while leaving open narrow grounds for annulment in individual cases, such as mistake or a claim for damages based on an unlawful act.
The operators the ruling covers
Several brands ran in the Dutch market during the pre-KOA grey period. They include Entain’s Bwin, PartyCasino and PartyPoker, and Unibet, then owned by Kindred Group and now part of FDJ United. The decision settles long-running disputes those firms faced from customers seeking to recover money lost before licensing.
The outcome sits alongside an earlier European Court of Justice decision on local gambling laws and player-loss cases, part of a wider run of litigation testing whether pre-regulation contracts can be unwound.
Unibet’s €75m exposure
The judgment carries the most weight for FDJ United and Unibet. The brand faces a €75m consumer claim brought in October 2025 by the claims organisation Dynamiet, which said it represented the interests and lost stakes of 2,500 former Unibet customers. Unibet has contested the claim, pointing to communications with the Dutch government that it would seek a licence once the KOA rules were settled, and to the eight-month cooling-off period the regulator Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) imposed on the brand in 2021 before it could launch.
Responding to SBC News, an FDJ United spokesperson said the ruling brought “important legal clarity for all parties involved,” confirming that “the central legal argument relied upon by claimants in relation to gambling contracts entered into between players and operators prior to the regulation of the Dutch online gambling market on 1 October 2021 cannot be upheld.”
The group tied the point to how it structured the Kindred deal. FDJ made a €2.6bn all-cash offer for Kindred in January 2024 and completed its purchase of a controlling stake in October 2024. FDJ United, whose regulatory record has drawn scrutiny including a Comoros licence held through its Relax Gaming arm, said its policy is to operate only in regulated markets or those with a clear path to regulation.
Following FDJ United’s acquisition of a controlling stake in the Kindred Group on 11 October 2024, Kindred’s business in markets not regulated at a local level, including in the Netherlands prior to the legal opening of this market in 2021, was divested, together with the associated liabilities.
Reform pressure builds
The legal relief may be short-lived. FDJ said its focus has moved to the next phase of reform, as State Secretary for Justice and Security Claudia van Bruggen pursues a package of measures aimed at protecting young adults and financially vulnerable players. The government’s plan, announced in June, would ban gambling advertising and bonuses and introduce a deposit limit that applies across all licensed operators, with players seeking higher limits required to pass an affordability check. A proposed rise in the gambling age from 18 to 21 has been postponed.
FDJ said it was still studying the plans and expected the detail to firm up over the next half year. The company backed stronger enforcement powers but warned against a complete advertising ban.
We would caution the government against moving towards a full advertisement ban. Recent studies have shown that 95% of the advertisements on Meta belong to unlicensed operators. A full advertisement ban risks nullifying the efforts to channelize players to the regulated market.
Estimates of the black market’s size vary. The VNLOK trade body, the KSA and the Dutch lottery have put unlicensed activity at more than 25% of the total market, below the roughly half that FDJ cites, but large enough to keep channelisation at the centre of the reform debate. The court’s finding that pre-2021 agreements with unlicensed firms did not breach public order also complicates the state’s case as it tries to push players away from offshore sites.
For operators, the ruling removes one source of legacy liability. What it does not remove is the tighter regime now taking shape, which the industry expects to see set out in detail before the end of the year.
Source: Supreme Court of the Netherlands
