Blue High House, the owner of betonline.ag, has been fined $1.2m for offering online gambling to people in the Netherlands without a license. [Image: Shutterstock.com]

Dutch gambling regulator Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) has fined Blue High House a hefty €1.125m ($1.180m) for offering online gambling in the Netherlands without a license.

The fine was originally €600,000 ($629,000), but once it dove into its investigation, the KSA found the owner of BetOnline.ag violated several other regulations.

we also saw things like autoplay and turboplay, which can encourage excessive gaming”

“With illegal providers, such as in this case Blue High House, we often see that risky gaming behavior is not taken into account in any way,” said KSA Chairman Michel Groothuizen in a press release (translated via Google from Dutch to English). “For example, players can create an account on this website without having to verify their age, which means that minors can also play. We also saw things like autoplay and turboplay, which can encourage excessive gaming, and there were no gaming limits. The KSA takes tough action against these types of illegal websites.”

The KSA said that BetOnline.ag removed the offending offer from its site, but warned that it could impose further sanctions if the company runs afoul of regulations again.

Blue High House had the same problem with the KSA about a year ago, this time with the site concreteline.ag. The regulator ordered the company to withdraw the site from the Dutch market or incur a fine of €43,000 ($45,000) per week up to a maximum of €129,000 ($135,000).