The new rules require all operators to provide certain data for research purposes in order to improve understanding of betting games harmful to punters.
“In practice, research institutions and people employed or associated with them who carry out research on gambling addiction do not always easily obtain the necessary research data. To facilitate this, the law states that all holders of online licenses are required to , subject to conditions, to make anonymous data available to research institutions upon request for research on gambling addiction,” says the law.
It makes it clear that licensees must “systematically record and analyze data” relating to player behavior, and make an anonymous version of that data available to research institutions if requested.
The data that must be provided must include “internal and external signs that point to excessive participation in licensed games of chance or risks of gambling addiction”, “interventions and player response to them”, login frequency, game frequency , age of the player if he is under 24 and transaction history.
An action to curb cases of gambling addictions in the Netherlands
“These data are important for scientific research and the development of new knowledge about problematic gambling behavior, and the development of intervention methods adapted to the player to avoid, as much as possible, the development of gambling addiction”, says the law.
In addition, the institution carrying out the research must inform both the Executive Board and the relevant license holder(s) of the publication of the research. The research law follows the Dutch Distance Gaming Act, which entered into force on April 1st.
The Dutch online gambling market opened on October 1 of this year, but immediately faced another disruption when its self-exclusion system, Cruks, experienced a technical failure. The market was then officially opened on October 5th.
Several operators chose to block Dutch customers until they received an online gaming license from KSA after the Dutch government announced a change in enforcement policy.
Among them are Kindred, which has said it will block Dutch customers until it receives a license, which it expects to be in the second quarter of 2022, and Entain, which hopes to submit an application for a license by the end of 2021.
