KSA Opened Gambling Addiction Research Data Consultations

Dutch gaming regulator Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) announced Friday a period of public consultation regarding the application of operator data for gambling addiction prevention, detection and treatment.

Provision of Data for Gambling Addiction Research

The consultation period launched by the KSA is looking to gather insight from all parties and interested stakeholders regarding how data licensed by online gambling operators is to be collected under the Remote Gambling Act (KOA Act). In addition, the regulator wants to know how players’ gambling behavior can be collated and interpreted to identify gambling addiction in its early phases and allow for appropriate action to be undertaken.

Also under the provisions of the KOA Act, which entered into force earlier in the year and effectively launched the new regulated online gambling market on October 1, 2021, licensees are obliged to provide anonymous data on gaming behavior to be used in scientific research into gambling addiction at the request of a research institution. To provide further clarity and to prevent overburdening of operators, the KSA established a list of rules that, among others, defined which institutions may request such data.

The KSA noted licensed operators or any other interested stakeholder may respond to the draft “Regulations on the provision of data for research into gambling addiction” until the end of the consultation period, November 1, 2021, by sending their comments. The regulator pointed out it would not be able to provide responses to the comments, but they will be considered during the scheme finalization.

Also under their duties under the Remote Gambling Act regime, operators are required to produce quarterly reports and to submit the information to the KSA to help the regulator improve its governance of the new online gambling regime and facilitate the management of the self-exclusion register CRUKS.

Addiction Prevention Fund

Alongside the official launch of the market with 10 licensed operators, the KSA established an Addiction Prevention Fund that will receive funding from taxes paid by online gambling operators.

Operators’ obligations towards the fund will help the regulator fund initiatives to achieve its three main objectives in problem gambling. These are anonymous treatment, improvement in research and the setting up of a centralized register, the National Counter, for online gamblers with gambling addictions where they, or their families and relatives, could seek advice.

To develop a new framework for the treatment of problem gambling and to support the fund’s objectives, the KSA appointed the Netherlands National Health Care Institute, Zorginstituut, while Dutch social welfare institute ZonMW will serve as the leading agency for research into gambling addiction.