Cruks: what the register does and where it stops

Where it stops

Cruks works within the Dutch system. Operators that do not appear in the licence register of the Kansspelautoriteit are not connected to it and therefore do not consult it.

That applies to all ten operators in the overview on this site. None of them — not the four with a Curaçao OGL number, not the three with an Anjouan number, not Primedice with the older number, and not Vave or BetPlays, for whom our data holds no licence at all — appears in the Dutch register. So there is no connection to Cruks either.

This is not a reproach to those operators; it follows directly from the fact that the obligation is attached to the Dutch licence and they do not hold that licence. It is, however, the most concrete example of what "outside the system" means in practice. All the other differences — which law applies, with whom you file a complaint, which clauses are in the terms — only become relevant once something has gone wrong. This difference is relevant at the moment you log in.

What the operators offer themselves, and what that is

Various operators outside the Dutch system have a button in the account for a pause or a self-exclusion, and some mention it in their terms. That is better than nothing and it is something other than Cruks, in a way that is worth writing out.

Cruks is an obligation that comes with the licence and that is enforced by a regulator. One registration works with all Dutch licence holders at once, and the operator has no say over the register. A button in an account is a service of that one operator, within that one account, under conditions the operator writes itself and can itself change. Anyone who uses such a button is excluded at that operator — and nowhere else.

Of the ten operators, this site has been unable to establish a single self-exclusion clause with a clause number, and therefore publishes no overview of them. What we did read with seven of them is a clause about document checks at the operator's own discretion: Bitsler in article 4.3, Cloudbet in article 18.1.1, CoinCasino in articles 5.2 and 9.3, Stake in article 4.8 and BetPlays in article 4.3, plus Rakebit and Primedice without our being able to establish a clause number. That is a different subject, but it does show what "at its own discretion" means in documents of this kind: the operator decides, and there is no fixed value against which you can test that decision.

With a register attached to a licence it is precisely the other way round. There, the operator does not decide.

What this page is and is not

This page describes three things: what Cruks is, who has to consult it, and where its effect stops. Nothing more. It is not a registration form and not a manual — registration runs through the Kansspelautoriteit, and the current conditions and steps are there and reliably nowhere else.

Nor is it a judgement about who ought to register. That is a decision for the person themselves. The only sensible role for a site like this one is to make sure that decision is taken with the right facts, and one of those facts is that the ten operators in this overview are not connected to the register. That stands here because it matters.

What else this site has to say about this system starts at the licence register of the Kansspelautoriteit.

When it is more than a register

Cruks is an instrument, not a treatment. Anyone who notices that playing takes up more room than they want — in time, in money, in how often they think about it — is not helped by a register alone.

Loket Kansspel offers free and anonymous help and information, for players themselves and for people around them. That is not a compulsory closing paragraph that every gambling page ought to have; it is the only useful pointer on a page that is otherwise about administration. Contact is free of charge and no registration is involved.

This site has no interest in it and earns nothing from it. What this site does earn from is one paid link to our partner, and that is set out in full on about us.