KSA Duty of Care Enforcement: 2026 Fines and What Operators Must Fix Now

The Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) concentrated its 2025 enforcement against licence holders on the duty of care (zorgplicht) under the Remote Gambling Act (Koa). According to iGaming Business, reporting on the KSA’s 2025 annual report in April 2026, five licensed operators were fined a combined €8.6 million in 2025, largely for duty of care failures found in investigations of extreme player losses. A record penalty against an unlicensed operator and tighter guidance on means testing, account closure and payment verification followed. As of October 2026, the pattern applies to every Dutch licence holder, and the first five-year licences are now being renewed.

What did the KSA sanction between 2025 and 2026?

Licence holders were sanctioned mainly for player protection and advertising failures, while unlicensed operators received the largest penalties. Dates for press-reported items are report dates, and the 711 entry rests on the KSA’s own published decision.

Gaming Intelligence reported the Instant Casino order on 28 August 2025, the Unibet fine on 2 December 2025 and the JOI Gaming fine on 17 December 2025. iGaming Business reported the Hillside order on 23 January 2026, and SBC News reported the Novatech penalty on 10 March 2026 and the TOTO warning in June 2026. Counsel should read the underlying KSA decisions before relying on any reported amount.

What duty of care gap does the KSA keep finding?

The KSA finds that licence holders do not analyse player behaviour well enough to trigger timely, effective intervention. In the 711 B.V. decision, the KSA requested ten player files covering people with high losses, play on many days and night-time wagering. It found violations in all ten and fined 711 €886,000 for the period February 2022 to June 2024.

“We have seen that not all providers organised the duty of care equally well from the opening of the market. We have therefore carried out additional investigations, which now result in various duty of care fines.” Michel Groothuizen, KSA Chair (translated from the Dutch).

The method matters more than the amount. Because the KSA reviews individual dossiers selected on loss, frequency and time-of-day markers, the licence holder’s evidence is the player file itself: which markers fired, when, and what happened next. The KSA’s statement that it has further tightened the duty of care requirements suggests, as analysis, that the standard now applied is stricter than the one applied to 711’s 2022 to 2024 period.

A Swedish Administrative Court of Appeal ruling, reported in October 2026, upheld Spelinspektionen’s penalties against Hillside for over-reliance on automated pop-ups and emails without timely escalation. A Swedish ruling is not Dutch law, but the KSA’s January 2026 binding order against the same group concerns the same category of failure.

Which means test and onboarding controls are under inspection?

Since October 2024, licence holders must run a means test (draagkrachttoets) when a player seeks to deposit net amounts above €300 for ages 18 to 24 or €700 for ages 24 and over. The KSA published its first good and bad practices overview in February 2025, then sampled concrete means tests at 20 licence holders. The result was ten improvement talks, three warnings and one binding instruction.

The updated 2026 guidance states that liquid assets such as savings cannot form part of the test and that the assessment must rest on the player’s structural income. The KSA says it will run new sampling under the revised guidance.

Three further KSA publications followed in autumn 2026. On 23 September it issued guidance on account closure, after finding that not all licence holders follow the rules, and stated that closing an account should be as easy as possible for the player. On 8 October it issued guidance on verifying bank accounts and other payment methods, after finding that registration checks were not always adequate. On 9 October it addressed 711 for requiring some customers to wager deposited money before withdrawing. The KSA states that such conditions are permitted only alongside a bonus and under strict conditions, and that otherwise payouts must be made as quickly as possible.

CRUKS, the national self-exclusion register, remains a mandatory check before play. Per the ICLG 2026 summary of the framework, licence holders must register players on request and involuntarily where they identify severe problem gambling. As of July 2026 reporting, about 120,000 people are registered, and the government proposes lengthening the minimum exclusion period from six to 12 months.

How are advertising and illegal operators connected to licence holder risk?

Advertising enforcement reaches content that licence holders do not control directly. TOTO Online received a warning because eight professional football clubs promoted a shirt-prize offer on their own social media channels, which the KSA treated as a breach of the role-model ban in force since 2022. The untargeted advertising ban applies from 1 July 2023, and the sports sponsorship ban from 1 July 2025.

In May 2026 the KSA wrote to licence holders ahead of the World Cup, promising “immediate enforcement action” and reminding them that micro-bets such as first yellow card or first corner are not permitted under Dutch law. Partner and sponsor content therefore needs the same review as the licence holder’s own channels.

Against unlicensed operators, the KSA’s constraint is statutory rather than evidential. The Novatech decision found that Dutch users could register, deposit and play without adequate geo-blocking or age verification, and that cryptocurrency and anonymous payment methods were accepted. The KSA says that without the 10% cap on global turnover the penalty would have exceeded €100 million. iGaming Business reported in April 2026 that the KSA put channelisation at 49% in the first half of 2025, down from 51% at the end of 2024, and that it is discussing amended legislation with the Justice Ministry. Sweden faces a comparable channelisation problem.

The licensing cycle raises the stakes. The KSA issued the first eight renewals on 17 September 2026, covering 1 October 2026 to 30 September 2031. Per the ICLG 2026 summary, reapplications from 1 January 2026 must include an exit plan, a WWFT risk analysis and documentation on informing the regulator of material business changes. CasinoNieuws.nl reported in June 2025 that the KSA warned renewal is not automatic.

What should licence holders fix now?

Licence holders should audit their own high-loss player files against the 711 selection markers: loss size, number of days played and overnight wagering. Each file should show the date a marker fired, the intervention chosen and the player’s response. Where the only recorded step is an automated message, the file will read as the KSA described 711’s.

Means tests must rest on structural income, with liquid assets excluded, trade press reporting on the update adds home equity and one-off payments to the exclusions. Wagering conditions on deposits not tied to a bonus must be removed, and account closure flows and bank-account verification must be checked against the September and October 2026 guidance.

In practice, marketing approvals should extend to sponsors, clubs and affiliates promoting the licence holder’s offer, since the TOTO warning arose from third-party posting. Licence holders facing a KSA investigation, or preparing a renewal file, should take advice from qualified Dutch counsel on how the KSA’s enforcement powers and the Koa apply to their facts.

Key Resources

KSA, “711 leeft zorgplicht onvoldoende na en krijgt boete van €886.000”, the regulator’s decision announcement.

KSA, “Kansspelautoriteit actualiseert richtlijnen voor uitvoering draagkrachttoets”, including the 2026 good and bad practices document.

KSA, news page, for the autumn 2026 guidance and first licence renewals. For a self-exclusion comparison, see how Spelinspektionen formalised Spelpaus API requirements.

This analysis draws on the KSA’s published decisions and guidance pages and on dated trade press reports, read as of October 2026.

Matt Denney

Editorial · gamingcompliance.io

Reads the primary source so you don't have to. Fifteen years inside iGaming compliance: operator, supplier, and crown-corporation lottery.