KSA Asks Players to Report Illegal Apps, Warns Operator over Ad

The Dutch Gaming Authority (Kansspelautoriteit/KSA) announced that it is doubling down on its regulatory efforts against the black market.

The KSA also highlighted a role-model violation and reminded its licensees that they should not feature celebrities that might appeal to younger audiences in their marketing campaigns.

KSA Urges Customers to Report Illegal Gambling Ads

The KSA announced that it has intensified its supervision of illegal gambling apps and apps promoting unlicensed websites. It reported that it has banned 20 such apps from app stores since the start of the year and vowed to continue the fight against unlicensed gambling.

According to the KSA, illegal gaming apps in the app stores are becoming increasingly common. It emphasized that many of them are being advertised via social media and, to make matters worse, are accessible to minors.

As if that wasn’t enough, many of these apps feature logos and imagery that are associated with legal providers, making them very misleading and dangerous. One such app reportedly misused the Holland Casino logo. Others posed as games before redirecting users to illegal gambling websites.

In addition to being misleading and dangerous, such illegal gambling apps are often advertised via social media or on other apps. The KSA cited an example where players enjoying Candy Crush were invited to download and play with an illegal gambling app called Plinko.

The KSA urged Dutch consumers to not let such apps slip unnoticed and to report them to the Appstore or Playstore.

The Regulator Addressed a Problematic Ad

In the meantime, the KSA warned Hotel Gaming Services BV, the license holder of the Circus Gran Casino gaming arcades, over a violation of the role model ban. For context, the Netherlands prohibits gambling operators from using celebrities that might appeal to younger audiences in their marketing efforts.

In this case, Circus Gran Casino used professional athletes from a Limburg ice hockey team to promote its products. The ads featured the athletes playing in a gambling arcade while dressed in their uniforms. During the ad, the team was also congratulated on winning a tournament.

The gaming arcade cooperated with the KSA’s investigation and removed the questionable content shortly after.

KSA Warned Operator over Customer Service Failure

In other news, the KSA recently contacted Noord Zuid Alliantie, which operates the Lucky 7 Casino brand, and issued a warning over a customer service violation.

According to the KSA, when officials tried to contact the operator’s customer service, they were greeted by a recording telling them that there was no one available at the moment. To make matters worse, the automatic message was in English, even though operators in the Netherlands are required to offer customer service in Dutch.

The Lucky 7 Casino owner cooperated with the KSA and took swift action to rectify the accessibility and language issues.