The Dutch Gambling Authority recently released its tenth semi-annual regulatory report, covering market operation data from July to December 2025. The report outlines a multi-dimensional picture: the licensed online gambling market has a stable monthly gross gaming revenue of about 100 million euros, with a cumulative GGY of 602 million euros (approximately 709 million US dollars) for the half-year, showing a trend towards stability, but subtle changes are occurring within the internal structure. The most striking data comes from the young group—players aged 18 to 23 contributed 61 million euros in legal gambling gross revenue, accounting for 10.2% of the entire market, while this age group only makes up 9.3% of the adult population. In other words, young people are participating in gambling activities at a rate exceeding their population proportion. Meanwhile, market concentration continues to decline, with the combined market share of the three major operators sliding from 45% to 55% at the end of 2024 to 30% to 40% by the end of 2025, activating competition within the licensed camp, and the diversion effect of the illegal market is also significant.
Market Share Dilution: Top Players' Advantage Narrows
From the licensing perspective, as of the end of 2025, there were 31 licensed parties under the KSA license system, of which 27 were actually operating. In 2024, LiveScore Group and Flutter's Tombola withdrew from the Dutch market, and decisions under regulatory pressure continue. The market share of top operators has further compressed from 40% to 50% six months ago to 30% to 40%, which KSA attributes to intensified competition within the licensed market, while also admitting that some players may have moved to the black market. Looking at account activity, the average monthly active accounts on licensed platforms reached 1.38 million, up from 1.29 million in the previous period, but based on de-duplication calculations from independent research firm GfK panel data, the actual average monthly active players are about 500,000, slightly down from 540,000 in the first half of the year. This discrepancy on paper indicates a common industry problem: the phenomenon of multiple account holdings is widespread, and the real betting behavior of individual players is obscured by multiple accounts.
Player loss data also shows differentiation. The average monthly loss per account in the licensed market decreased from 77 euros in the first half of the year to 73 euros, but the average monthly loss per active player, excluding multiple accounts and inactive months, actually rose slightly from 117 euros to 124 euros. The loss distribution is highly right-skewed, with about 36% of accounts losing between 100 and 1000 euros per month, and 0.6% of accounts—about 50,000—losing more than 1000 euros per month. Online slots dominate GGY with an absolute advantage of 78%, sports betting accounts for 20%, peer-to-peer gambling such as poker and bingo only accounts for 1.8%, and horse racing betting is less than 0.2%. Slot players have an average monthly gaming duration of 4 hours, twice that of other dealer games, with an average hourly loss of 18 euros.
Young Players' Account Ownership Ratio at 22%, Regulation Deems "Almost Impossible to Break Through"
The data on the young group has been specifically highlighted by KSA. Players aged 18 to 23 hold 22% of all active accounts in the market, about 305,000, but their average monthly loss per account is only 34 euros, about half of the market average of 73 euros. KSA interprets this as: young players participate frequently but with relatively restrained individual investments. However, the positive deviation between the 10.2% GGY contribution and the 9.3% population share still keeps the regulatory layer alert.
The issue of underage access closely related to young players was also definitively concluded in a special survey published by KSA during the same period—under the current identity verification system, it is "almost impossible" for minors under 18 to register and bet on licensed platforms. The chairman of the regulatory authority attributes this to the effectiveness of the licensed parties' verification systems, but also points out that the real risk lies in those unprotected illegal platforms.
PASA official website continues to track the disclosure dynamics of European gambling regulatory data, noting that the Dutch KSA's semi-annual report is a benchmark in Europe in terms of data granularity and problem orientation. From account-level loss distribution to age segment GGY share, to the scale estimation of illegal market players, this data system provides rare detailed navigation for policy-making.
Illegal Market and Addiction Intervention: A Growing Tug-of-War
KSA's estimate of the illegal market shows a slight improvement in channelization rate to 92%. GfK panel data estimates that about 480,000 players use only licensed platforms monthly, about 20,000 players span both licensed and unlicensed ends, and about 30,000 players stick exclusively to unlicensed platforms. The total online gambling population is about 520,000 monthly active. Although the channelization rate seems not low, the gap formed by 30,000 pure black market players and 20,000 gray swinging players is still a gap that the regulatory layer is unwilling to ignore.
The data on addiction intervention is also not optimistic. The number of people receiving treatment for gambling disorders increased by 10% year-on-year to 2708 in 2024. The registration volume of the central exclusion registration system Cruks continues to climb, reaching 111,534 people by the end of January 2026. Non-voluntary exclusion applications soared from 161 in the first half of the year to 442 in the second half, which KSA attributes to the proactive actions of operators under regulatory prompts. KSA has previously announced funding for five anti-gambling harm projects, focusing on peer support networks, clinical addiction guidelines, prevention measures embedded in social health programs, and workplace and family support.
The tightening of advertising is still fermenting. Since the strict advertising ban implemented in July 2023, Nielsen monitoring shows that the monthly average volume of paid online advertising by licensed platforms plummeted from 129,000 in the first half of the year to 75,000 in the second half, a drop of 42%. Social media activity has also shrunk simultaneously, with the X platform almost abandoned due to age-targeting restrictions. Interestingly, the number of people who did not participate in gambling but visited licensed gambling websites climbed from 1.8 million to 2.1 million, indicating that gambling-related content is still expanding its appeal to non-player groups. In January this year, the new minority government of the Netherlands has started discussions on a complete ban on gambling advertising, although new measures have not yet been implemented, but the continuous tightening of policy directions is undeniable.
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This article is from "PASA-Global iGaming Leaders" gambling industry news channel: https://t.me/pasa_news
Original in-depth gambling channel: https://t.me/gamblingdeep
Free data reports: @pasa_research
PASA Matrix: @pasa002_bot
PASA official website: https://www.pasa.news
