The Dutch gambling regulator, the Kansspelautoriteit (Ksa), said on 29 October 2026 that gross gaming revenue in the licensed Dutch market fell from EUR 4.5 billion in 2024 to EUR 4.1 billion in 2025. On the rounded figures, the market-wide drop works out to roughly 9%. The figure covers online and offline gambling and is measured as stakes minus prizes paid out (BSR in Dutch). It comes from the regulator's annual market scan, published the same day as its monitoring report on online gambling in the first half of 2026.
Online products took the steepest falls, with BSR down 18.2% for online casino and 30.2% for online sports betting.
Land-based results were mixed. Slot machines in gaming halls and hospitality venues lost 4.7% of BSR compared with 2024, while Holland Casino's rose 2.8%, mainly from slot machines rather than table games. Lotteries were down 1.8%.
The Ksa says the declines are at least partly due to player protection measures introduced at the end of 2024, including the net deposit limit. That is the regulator's interpretation, and the report does not put a number on how much of the fall the measures explain. The Ksa also says the men's European Championship in football lifted sports betting revenue in 2024, which affects the comparison with 2025.
The half-year report shows the number of online gambling accounts rising to 1.48 million in the first half of 2026, from 1.38 million six months earlier.
The Ksa estimates that about 490,000 people gamble in a given month and about 820,000 gambled online at least once in the first half of 2026. It says the number of people who gamble has not grown significantly. The regulator offers two possible reasons that may partly explain the rise in accounts. One is the men's World Cup, which started in June. The other is people opening several accounts to get around per-account deposit limits. Neither explanation is confirmed.
According to the Ksa, about 94% of people who gamble use only legal providers. Channelisation measured by revenue is lower: the regulator estimates it rose from 54% in the second half of 2025 to 59% in the first half of 2026.
The Ksa suggests the gap between the two measures implies that people who gamble illegally lose considerably more on average than customers of legal providers, but this is an inference, not a measured figure.
The monitoring report cites LADIS figures showing that the number of people in treatment for gambling addiction in 2025 was more than 14% higher than in 2024. Ipsos estimates, also cited by the Ksa, put the share of online gamblers who play without problems at 65%, unchanged from 2025. In 2026 the number at high risk of gambling harm stayed the same, while the low-risk group grew and the moderate-risk group shrank.
The reports do not show how much of the revenue fall the deposit limit caused, or how many of the new accounts belong to people who already had one. Two figures would answer both questions: BSR broken down by players who reached their limits, and a count of unique players rather than accounts. We don't know whether the Ksa holds either.
Prepared with AI from the regulator's own announcement and published automatically, without prior editorial review. How we use AI