KSA Publishes Report Highlighting Decline in Riskier Spending

The Netherlands Gambling Authority (Kansspelautoriteit/KSA) has published its Spring 2025 report, highlighting the positive effect of the safer gambling efforts in the country. According to the KSA, the new restrictions the Netherlands introduced in October have so far had a beneficial effect on the Dutch market.

Unfortunately, however, illegal gaming remains strong.

The H2 Revenue Declined Due to the October Changes

In its report, the KSA mentioned that the gross gaming revenue of its licensees stood at EUR 1.47 billion for 2024, up 6% year-on-year. The KSA elaborated that the GGR for the second half of the year was 10% lower than the GGR in H1. It attributed this slowdown to the strong H1, which was driven by the European Football Championship and the new safer gaming measures, which were introduced in H2.  

In the second half of the year, the average number of gambling accounts increased slightly to 1.19 million. In Q4, the number of new accounts continued to increase, although the KSA warned that this doesn’t necessarily mean more players since a single player could make multiple accounts.

In terms of players, the KSA estimated that a total of 788K people gambled online using legal operators in the last six months of 2024, equating to 5.4% of the country’s adult population. This is consistent with the 5.5% outlined in the report for the previous six-month period.

Players Started Losing Less after the New Rules

According to the KSA, the average H2 player was aged 24 and lost EUR 148 a month. This marked a noticeable decrease from the first six months of the year when players lost EUR 160 on average.

The number of players suffering extreme losses has experienced a sharp decline thanks to the measures introduced in October. Before that, 4% of all accounts lost over EUR 1K a month. Following the latest safer gaming changes, the number of players losing over EUR 1K a month dropped to 1.2%. Before October, 73% of all gaming revenue came from big spenders. After that, this number plummeted to 23%.

Young adults, which are considered to be a riskier group, comprised 11% of the H2 gambling revenue while making up 9% of the adult population. While they tend to spend less money on gambling (EUR 48 a month), they seem to be much more attracted to sports betting than their older counterparts.

In the meantime, the KSA reported that, as of January 2025, there were 87,345 people in the Netherlands who had opted to exclude themselves from gambling via the Cruks register. Half of them were under the age of 32, and 16% were young adults.

Channelization Remains Challenging

In the meantime, the Netherlands continues to find channelization challenging as unlicensed operators consistently prove to be very efficient in attracting big spenders. According to the KSA, some 91% of all players who gamble online do so with legal providers.

However, despite comprising only 9% of the entire gambling population, those who play with black market operators spend as much as the remaining 91% do.