Dutch offshore plague continues despite Google oversight
Google asserts that it already has active anti-offshore gambling policies in the Netherlands in response to a motion filed by two Dutch politicians.
Mikal Tseggai, a member of the Dutch Labour Party, and Willem Koops, from the New Social Contract Party, requested a direct government intervention to restrict unlicensed operators from being shown to Dutch residents in Google searches.
“The House of Representatives heard the deliberation…requesting the government to include a ban on advertising and making gambling websites findable in search engines in the new gambling law, unless the Gambling Authority (Kansspelautoriteit) has exceptionally certified a provider as a reliable organisation, the so-called whitelisting, on the basis of a careful review.”
In other words, the motion essentially asked for Google to refrain from giving advertising space to gambling operators unless the same ones have been explicitly cleared by the Kansspelautoriteit through the granting of a Dutch licence.
However, in an official response to CasinoNieuws.nl, Google confirmed that such measures already exist in the form of a whitelist incorporated within the US technology giant’s very own advertising policy.
This obliges the tech firm to only give region-specific advertising space to firms officially licensed by the relevant gambling regulators, including the Netherlands’ KSA.
Similar measures were most recently rolled out by Google across Nigeria and Germany.
Persistent issue
Despite this, illegal websites keep finding new ways to abuse Google’s search results to find new potential customers. In 2023, the tech firm reported a total of 5.5 billion ads taken down from its engine globally as they displayed content that violates its guidelines, including unlicensed gambling ads.
Earlier this year, Google’s EU headquarters in Ireland were contacted by the Dutch Quality Mark Responsible Affiliates (KVA) organisation that highlighted an increasing number of domains popping out after putting the term “casino without Cruks” in the search engine.
Dutch traffic towards such domains remains high, with the KVA reporting more than one million Dutch users lost to the black market by March of this year.
The development comes amid continuing political pressure on the Dutch gaming industry as the government looks at potential amendments to the 2021 Remote Gaming Act (KOA Act).
This review has been spearheaded by the State Secretary for Legal Protection, Teun Struycken, while proposed amendments have been subject to extensive parliamentary debate.