The Kansspelautoriteit (KSA), the Dutch Gambling Authority, has released a post discussing the intricacies of legal gambling markets and the duty of care over players.

René Jansen, KSA Chair, starts by posing the question: “Does it make sense to have a legal gambling market if players are not necessarily better protected there than if they gamble illegally?

This post comes quite recently after the Authority published the results of its investigation into the duty of care assumed by operators and providers in the industry.

In response, Jansen explains the range of conclusions that have been circulating since its release.

Jansen said: “Open standards in a law have advantages and disadvantages. What we have now seen is that a fragmented interpretation of the duty of care is not always in favour of the player.

“For example, we have seen that providers are often unable to monitor in real-time.”

He goes on to explain that this means that some operators will only notice problematic behaviour up to three days later.

While this may seem like a short response time in the grand scheme of things, financial harm can occur very quickly when it comes to gambling and betting.

Jansen continues: “Providers must therefore be able to see much faster who may be going wrong, and always be able to intervene quickly.

“Anyone who hears these rather firm conclusions may indeed wonder whether a legal market is useful.

“As a supervisor, I was adamant about that in my answer: yes. Without a legal market, there was no duty of care at all.”

Although some providers are implementing some tools to assist in reducing gambling-related harm, such as extra limits for players under the age of 24, Jansen argues that the standards should be raised across the board.