SBC News

National lottery provider and the biggest gambling operator in the Netherlands, Nederlandse Loterij, has issued a notice that it will seek its legal rights against operator Qbet and all connected entities behind it.

Qbet, owned by Novatech together with 55Bet, another illegal entity targeting Dutch consumers, was labeled as “the largest illegal gambling site” in the Netherlands by Nederlandse Loterij.

As such, the licensed operator announced that it will seek to permanently bring down Qbet and the larger chain of command by leveraging all legal measures it has at its disposal.

A similar lawsuit, again by Nederlandse Loterij, was launched against Lalabet in 2025, which was the first such at this scale. Hearings in that case are currently taking place at The Hague.

It would be interesting to see how the latest case with Novatech develops, as the company is licensed in Curaçao, and although it is an autonomous nation under the Dutch Crown, the legal systems of both Curaçao and the Net..

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has confirmed that online gaming and gambling will be the “next issue to look at” in a widening push to introduce age-related digital safeguards.

The comments, which are not the first on the topic, follow the administration’s headline proposal to prohibit social media access for under-15s, backed by mandatory age verification requirements for platforms from 1 January 2027. While the immediate focus is on social media, the direction of travel is towards forming a broader compliance perimeter around all digital products with youth exposure risks, including regulated betting and gaming.

In an interview with infokids.gr, Mitsotakis positioned gaming and online gambling, as well as artificial intelligence, as the logical next steps for the Greek government to take after social media controls, explicitly linking future interventions to enforcement gaps already observed in gambling.

He noted that while gambling is “typically prohibited under 21,” r..

Unibet has been criticised in the Netherlands for violating the country’s Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act (Wwft).

Optdeck Service Limited, which operates the FDJ United brand in the market, has been issued an AML/CFT directive from the Dutch gaming authority Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) after an investigation found that customer due diligence was ‘not being performed well enough’.

The KSA noted that transaction monitoring and control measures don’t align well with Unibet’s policy in practice and that it must adjust its policy to make the monitoring of players and their transactions more effective.

In particular, the regulator highlighted that policy adjustments are needed regarding financial thresholds.

With the directive, Unibet has been told by the KSA that it must cease the various violations. However, the regulator spotlighted that the operator had ‘a cooperative attitude and proactively worked on a remediation plan’, with some violations stopped during th..

Portugal’s gaming regulator is aiming to simplify the self-exclusion process as it embarks on a system overhaul and a new user experience.

Launched by the Gaming Regulation and Inspection Service (SRIJ) yesterday (8 April), players and non-players will be able to use the platform to self-exclude from all licensed online gaming operators in Portugal.

According to the regulator, the new system features a ‘simpler and more intuitive interface’ to allow for quicker and more efficient self-exclusion requests, and has also been optimised for mobile devices.

SRIJ stated: “With this new platform, SRIJ reinforces the quality of its digital services and the effectiveness of the gambling control mechanisms available to players.”

Players can self-exclude for a specific period of time, with a minimum period of three months or indefinitely.

Portugal’s gaming market has grown to 17 licensed operators since the regulation began in 2015. In Q4 2025, the market generated €337.6m, growth of 4.5% co..