Bet365 enters Dutch Online Gambling Market

On 1st of October 2021 the first 10 gambling operators got their license for the Dutch online gambling market.

Bet 365 was one of these lucky few companies who were able to pass the strict compliance checks and mandatory software integrations of the Dutch Gambling Commission, the Kansspelautoriteit (KSA). The gambling platform launched on Bet365.nl on 26th of October.

The other 9 operators with a Dutch license are a mix of government casino’s (HollandCasino, Toto), Bingo (Tombola), online newcomers (Betcity, Fairplay) and more experienced international players (Bingoal, Batavia and GGpoker). Livescorebet has also gotten a license, but plans to be operational in 2022.

In this group Bet365 is by far the biggest and most experienced player, however the state brands Hollandcasino and Toto are more well known to the Dutch players and are expected to acquire the biggest market share from the start.

Products

Bet 365 Casino will be using the Playtech software for its live casino and casino section in The Netherlands. Furthermore there is a games section with other popular software providers like Netent, Novomatic and Quickspin to name a few. There are about 300 games to play in the casino. This low number is due to the fact that every game has to be checked and approved.

The Bet365 sportsbook is available to bet on many sports and events. Certain specific bets however, like betting on corners or cards are prohibited in The Netherlands to prevent match fixing. Dutch players can also play poker on the iPoker network. Bingo is not yet available at Bet365 for the Dutch and also the Android or iOS app is not working yet.

Marketing

So far Bet 365 has acted like the calm and wise giant in Holland, as it has proven to be in the rest of the world. The company took its time to launch the product, making sure the platform would not have any bugs or other significant problems. Where other licensees struggled with registrations, the CRUKS implementation (player exclusion program) or an overloaded helpdesk, Bet365 used it’s experience to test and make sure players would not encounter any problems.

Bet365 mostly uses proven online marketing channels, with targeted traffic from affiliate websites rather than the more expensive offline marketing. Each affiliate website has to do compliance checks based on the UK gambling rules for advertisement.

Advertisement rules in The Netherlands are less strict than in the UK for now, but already there have been concerns about gambling advertisements. As has happened in many other regulated countries like Belgium and the UK, the rules for advertising are likely to only become stricter by time. Bet365 does not seem to be taking any risks and are making sure their advertisement is compliant now and in the future.