Netherlands Gaming Authority

The Netherlands Gaming Authority (NGA) was formed back in 2012 to regulate land-based gambling in the Netherlands. Unfortunately, online gambling is yet to be legalized in the country, though the ‘Remote Gambling Bill’ is set to change this in the near-future.

While the NGA do not yet regulate online gambling, it’s likely they will do in the near-future, and in this post, we’re going to take a look at how the Authority work, what they do, and what their complaints procedure is.

Note: This article will focus on land-based gaming.

About The Netherlands Gaming Authority

The Netherlands Gaming Authority was established in 2012 as an independent governance body, and it’s tasked with supervising and regulating all games of chance in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The NGA is fully-funded by gaming levies, paid by licensed operators.

The NGA has three main responsibilities:

To regulate legal supply of gambling machines/games;
To prevent gambling addiction, illegality and crime related to gambling;
To protect and inform customers and consumers.

The NGA is a respected organization in the Netherlands, and it also advises the Minister of Justice and Security on various gambling issues affecting the country.

License Requirements

The Netherlands Gaming Authority requires all operators providing games of chance in the Netherlands to hold a valid license, issued by them. In order to acquire this license, operators must adhere to a number of terms, and this includes everything from having their games independently verified, to ensuring they’re carryoug responsible gambling and under-age gambling checks.

Licensees are also required to adhere to the relevant taxation laws – and part of an operator’s turnover must be distributed to responsible gambling causes; this includes charities which help problem gamblers.

How To Check If a License is Valid

The NGA maintains an up-to-date list of all operators it’s issued licenses to, and this can be found here, on their website.

Complaints Procedure

The Netherlands Gaming Authority accept a variety of complaints – but they do not deal directly with specific cases. If you experience problems with an operator in the Netherlands, you are – first – advised to make a complaint directly with the established in question.

If you are unhappy with their decision, you may submit a complaint directly to the NGA through their website’s complaint section – but it’s unlikely they will investigate your complaint. They ask for complaints to be submitted purely to see when an operator receives multiple complaints of the same nature, in which case they make look to take action against the operator.