Kansspelautoriteit (KSA), the Dutch Gambling Authority has issued two fines, one for failure to comply with player protection standards and another for illegal operations.

The larger of the two fines, standing at €4.2m, was issued to Starscream Ltd, which was found operating the brands of rantcasino.com, allstarzcasino.com, and sugarcasino.com without a Dutch licence.

This is the second time Starscream has been fined for illegally operating in the Netherlands, having been issued a €840,000 penalty in April last year. Both cases may demonstrate the difficulty of finding illegal operators, however – if a company is not licensed in a country, how can a regulator enforce payment of its penalty?

On a wider scale, the two fines against Starscream also demonstrate the continuing battle against the black market being waged in the Netherlands. Operators often argue that marketing restrictions and high taxation are a cause of the country’s black market woes.

Michel Groothuizen, Chairman of the board of the KSA, said: “The Netherlands Gambling Authority has a wide range of tools at its disposal to tackle illegal providers. Imposing administrative fines is one of them.

“Although collecting such fines presents challenges, particularly for parties outside the EU, with these fines we continue to send the message that we are taking a tough stance against illegal offerings in the Netherlands.”

KSA not easing up

The second fine issued this week is a much more typical one in the Netherlands, centring around player protection. The KSA has made player protection, particularly protection of younger and more vulnerable customers, a top priority in recent years.

Notable fines for player protection reasons in 2025 were issued to Unibet, LeoVegas and JOI Gaming, for the reasons of player supervision in the cases of Unibet and LeoVegas and advertising infractions in JOI Gaming’s case.

In the most recent instance, the KSA has fined Tulipa Ent Ltd, which trades as ComeOn the Netherlands, for failing to detect signs of excessive gambling behviaour among 10 young adult players on time. This included setting ‘excessive deposit limits’ and incurring thousands in losses over short periods of time.

Groothuizen added: “The Ksa previously found that providers’ implementation of their duty of care varied too widely and often left much to be desired. We therefore conducted additional research with various providers, resulting in the various duty of care fines we are now seeing.

“Providers absolutely must not let slip something as essential as the duty of care, especially when it concerns vulnerable target groups such as young adults.”