The Dutch government fined Sarah Eternal SRL €900,000.

The Dutch government fined Sarah Eternal SRL €900,000.

 De Kansspelautoriteit (KSA), which is in charge of gambling in the Netherlands, has fined Sarah Eternal SRL for "illegally offering" gaming on its CasinoSky website.
 Sarah Forever
 The KSA gave the operator a €900,000 ($976,424/£756,027) fine on February 20. They said the operator had not done enough to stop Dutch players from gambling on its site.

 CasinoSky has games of chance, but it doesn't have a licence to do business in the Netherlands.  Back in March 2024, KSA officials found that players with IP addresses in the Netherlands could still get into the site. They gave it a €280,000 fine.

 Also, when the website was looked into, it was found that players could still use credit cards tied to Dutch banks to make deposits, and when they signed up, the area code was automatically filled with the Dutch number +31.

 The website's terms of service also didn't list the Netherlands as a country that had to follow certain rules.

 The head of the KSA, Michel Groothuizen, said in a statement that the Netherlands has a legal market where this kind of gaming can happen safely.

 "With these kinds of illegal providers, we often see that they don't do anything to stop people from playing games in dangerous ways," Groothuizen said.

 "For instance, there was no age verification, which means that minors could play, and cryptocurrency could be used to gamble."  When these kinds of people come to KSA, we take tough action.

 Sarah Eternal SRL, which is based in Costa Rica, has six weeks from the date of the fine to pay the €900,000 or file an appeal.

 Urges for more action
 The Dutch 2021 Remote Gambling Act was looked over again last year.  It seemed to say that the safety steps that were already in place weren't enough and weren't working.

 Last month, KSA chairperson Groothuizen said that raising the age to 21 for online gaming would not be a good idea because it could push younger players to the black market, where they are less safe.

 In reaction to a letter from Teun Struycken, the country's state secretary for legal protection, Groothuizen made the statement. In the letter, Struycken asked for stricter measures to be taken, such as raising the age of legal betting and giving regulators more power.

 Struycken also said that there should be limits on deposits across the whole business.  Groothuizen supported the move, but he pointed out the problems that would arise when it was put into action.

 In the Netherlands, player net deposit limits were put in place in October. These limits have since been applied to all approved operators on their own.  So, if a player hits their limit on one site, they can switch to another and still have plenty of time to play.