The Dutch gambling regulator has been busy dishing out fines again, this time targeting Kindred Group subsidiary Trannel International.

The Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) is demanding €470,000 from the operator for offering blackjack, roulette, poker and sports betting to Dutch customers, via the website unibet.eu, between 11^th August and 27^th December 2018.

In the KSA’s eyes, the incriminating evidence was the fact that the operator was using a Dutch payment provider (iDeal), and offering Dutch-language player support.

Given that most gambling operators, and many other observers, consider the KSA’s position to be outright illegal under EU law, it almost goes without saying that Kindred has decided to appeal the ruling.

The current, and many would argue entirely dysfunctional, Dutch Gambling Act dates from 1964 and is in the process of being replaced by the new Remote Gambling Bill, that should set up a normal regulated online market. However, the first licenses are not expected to be issues until the first few months of 2021 (read more).

Just a couple of weeks ago the KSA hit ElectraWorks Limited, operator of GVC-owned gambling website Bwin.com, with a €350,000 fine for offering gambling to Dutch players (read more).

AYO.NEWS says:

This puts operators like Kindred in a bit of quandary. Do they just abandon Dutch customers for the next few years, not only losing important revenue but placing said customers at the mercy of less scrupulous operators?

Or do they keep serving Dutch customers and keep swatting away the KSA with appeals? The danger of that approach being the KSA may refuse to issue licenses to operators with what it sees as record of non-compliance.

Kindred itself has been under pressure recently, with its shares crashing 20% at one point following the release of its H1 2019 report, which showed a staggering 48% plunge in profits (read more).

AYO.NEWS says features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited.