The Netherlands' rules, sourced
Dutch gambling law in plain English: online licence, article 1 and CRUKS
Which permit online gambling needs in the Netherlands, what each part of article 1 covers, and how the public licence search and the exclusion register work, with the source address and read date beside every fact.
Dutch gambling law rests on one main statute, the Wet op de kansspelen, and online play was written into it by an amendment known as the Wet Koa (short for kansspelen op afstand, games of chance at a distance). This page sets out what those rules cover, whom each rule speaks to, and where you can read the text yourself.
It is the only page on this site about the Dutch rules, and it describes rather than judges. Every fact below comes from wetten.overheid.nl, kansspelautoriteit.nl or openovergokken.nl, with the address and the day the page was opened. Facts dated 2 September 2026 come from screenshots taken that day; everything else was read on 16 September 2026.
Where online play sits in Dutch gambling law
The consolidated Wet op de kansspelen is published on wetten.overheid.nl under the identifier BWBR0002469. On 16 September 2026 the page showed the version in force from 12 February 2025. The provisions added by the Koa amendment are not a separate document: they sit inside that single running text as a title of their own.
Article 31(1) gives the working definition. For that title, games of chance at a distance are games organised remotely by means of telecommunication, which takes in any website or app. Article 31a(1) then names who grants the permit and to whom: the board of the Kansspelautoriteit may grant one legal entity with full legal capacity a licence to organise such games, for a period the board sets.
The Kansspelautoriteit summarises this on kansspelautoriteit.nl/online-kansspel-aanbieden (read 16 September 2026). Online games of chance may be offered only with a licence under article 31a, which the page calls the Koa-vergunning. It lists four kinds of game the licence covers:
- casino games in which players play against the licence holder;
- casino games in which players play against each other;
- bets on a sports match;
- bets on horse racing and harness racing.
What article 1 covers and whom each part addresses
Article 1(1) is the starting point of the whole Act. Subject to what Title Va provides, it lists four kinds of conduct the Act does not allow, and each part has its own addressee. A screenshot of wetten.overheid.nl from 2 September 2026 and a fresh read on 16 September 2026 gave the same wording.
- Part a concerns anyone who lets people play for prizes when a chance mechanism picks the winners, one that participants generally cannot decisively influence, unless a licence under the Act has been granted. It addresses the provider.
- Part b concerns promoting participation in such an unlicensed opportunity, or in a comparable one offered outside the Kingdom but within Europe, including supplying the means for it or holding material meant for publication. It addresses whoever promotes, not the person taking part.
- Part c concerns making use of an opportunity from part a while knowing that no licence was granted for it. Here the participant is the addressee, and the knowledge is written into the description itself.
- Part d concerns deliberately and falsely creating the impression that a licence was granted, or that no conditions are attached to one. That covers, for instance, a seal or wording that suggests a Dutch permit which does not exist.
The article says nothing about coins or payment methods. Its wording turns on the chance mechanism and on the licence, whether a stake is placed in euros or in bitcoin.
The Kansspelwijzer: searching the Dutch licence list
The Kansspelautoriteit keeps a public overview at kansspelautoriteit.nl/kansspelwijzer. According to that page (read 16 September 2026) it lists every provider allowed to offer games of chance in the Netherlands, so you can see whether the authority granted a licence. You search by name and narrow the results with filters in the right-hand column.
Its page for players, kansspelautoriteit.nl/voor-spelers (read 16 September 2026), advises looking up the app, website or gaming venue in the Kansspelwijzer first, and adds that doing so is safer. A practical way to use the search:
- Write down the brand and the domain exactly as your address bar shows them.
- Search the brand, then the company name printed in the site's footer.
- If there is a hit, compare the domain and the licence holder's name with the site you visited.
- Take a screenshot of the result with the date visible.
No result means the authority has granted no licence under that name. A number issued elsewhere belongs in that issuer's own register; the steps for Curaçao are on the guide to OGL certificates. None of the twelve casinos in the ranking on this site appears as a holder of a Kansspelautoriteit licence; their numbers come from Curaçao or Anjouan, or are absent.
CRUKS: the register of people who exclude themselves
Article 33h(1) tells the board to set up a register holding the details of people who have signed up for temporary exclusion from games of chance. That is the Centraal register uitsluiting kansspelen, or CRUKS, and article 33h(3) lists what the register contains. The first paragraph was read on wetten.overheid.nl on 16 September 2026; the third comes from the screenshot of 2 September 2026.
The Kansspelautoriteit's CRUKS page, captured on 2 September 2026, explains the practice: licensed online providers, arcades and Holland Casino check the register before someone can play. The page for players (read 16 September 2026) adds that you sign up for at least six months, and it links to Gokstop, the route for registering.
CRUKS is a brake you choose to switch on, and it sits alongside the practical habits described on the page about budgets and breaks.
What a licence means for players, in the authority's words
The Kansspelautoriteit ties the licence to player safety: its page for players frames the Kansspelwijzer search as the safer first step before gambling anywhere. Together with the CRUKS description above, that gives the two protections the authority itself names on those pages: a provider it has licensed, and a register that such providers consult.
For information and help, the same page points to OpenOverGokken. According to openovergokken.nl (read 16 September 2026) the site is an initiative of the Kansspelautoriteit. It offers a self-test, a self-help module, a help finder, practical tips and a step plan for debts, plus a free phone line: 0800 24 000 22.
Foreign licences next to Dutch gambling law
The casinos compared on this site hold a Curaçao or Anjouan licence, or print no number in their terms. Such a licence is granted by another body and recorded in another register than the Kansspelwijzer. The fifth of the site's checks asks whether that issuer's register shows the licence under the casino's own domain.
A Curaçao or Anjouan entry therefore tells you about the relationship between the casino and that issuer. It gives no information about the permit article 31a describes; the Kansspelwijzer is the place for that. How to set an Anjouan number against its register is covered in the Anjouan register walkthrough.
Prize tax as a separate set of rules
Alongside the licensing rules there is a separate act on gambling tax. It decides, among other things, who pays when a prize comes from a provider without a Dutch licence, and at what rate. The articles and a worked example are on the page on tax over prizes.
Reading the sources yourself
These are the addresses behind this page, each with the day it was opened:
- wetten.overheid.nl, Wet op de kansspelen (BWBR0002469), articles 1, 31, 31a and 33h(1): 16 September 2026; articles 1 and 33h also as screenshots of 2 September 2026.
- kansspelautoriteit.nl/online-kansspel-aanbieden, /kansspelwijzer and /voor-spelers: 16 September 2026.
- The Kansspelautoriteit's CRUKS page: screenshot of 2 September 2026.
- openovergokken.nl: 16 September 2026.
Texts change. A new version on wetten.overheid.nl carries its own validity date at the top of the page, so check that first if you read this later. How the casinos themselves are scored is explained separately in the five-check scoring method.