How could you pull the plug and leave me flatline? A new joint report from the Dutch gambling authority, Kansspelautoriteit (KSA), and the country’s Ministry of Finance shows the tax take from online gambling is flatlining, in a further sign that the regulated market is failing.

• The tax rate on gambling rose in January to 37.8% from the 34.2% rate instituted the year previous.
• Just two years ago, the rate stood at 30.5%.

Rolling in it: The state aim of the tax hikes was to raise an extra €216m from 2026 onwards, with an incremental €108m expected to be raised last year.

• Instead, the report estimates receipts in 2025 came in just €2m above 2024 at €1.036bn vs. €1.034bn in 2023.
• The 2026 forecast is for a tax take that will be just €57m higher than 2024 at €1.091bn.

Basic math: Faced with a near-flat result, the KSA and the ministry built a model to strip out the other things happening to the market at the same time – chiefly the player-protection rules introduced in October 2024 and the bump from Euro 2024 – and isolate the effect of the rate rise alone.

• On that basis the report puts the isolated revenue effect of the rate rise at €83m in 2025 and €138m in 2026.
• Even that flattering figure sits below target, and the report attaches “grote onzekerheid” – a ‘great uncertainty’ – to it, conceding the tax effect cannot be cleanly separated from everything else going on.
• The reason the number is so low is that the rate rise has shrunk the base it is levied on.
• The direct effect of the higher rate is partly canceled out by a €90m reduction in the base that the report attributes to the rise itself.

Losing at monopoly: A further damaging admission concerns the money the Dutch state collects by other routes. The Netherlands owns two operators outright – Holland Casino and Nederlandse Loterij – and earns corporate tax, license levies and dividends from both.

• At Holland Casino, the report estimates pre-tax profit €27m lower in 2025 because of the rate change, and €54m lower in 2026.
• That works through to roughly €7m and €14m less corporate tax respectively, plus €20m and €40m of dividend the company could otherwise have paid the state.
• At Nederlandse Loterij, the combined hit to corporate tax, levies and profit is put at €16m in 2025 and €34m in 2026, against annual contributions and dividends to the state of ~€120m-€125m.
• Net it all off and the picture is of a government taxing one of its own pockets to fill another, with very little left over once the foregone corporate tax and dividends are accounted for.

Shutting up shop: The market data tells a similar story. Visits to arcades and Holland Casino fell 11% YoY in Q1, from 4.6m to 4.1m, and the number of arcade venues has dropped steadily since early 2024.

• The KSA noted that arcade operators JVH Gaming and Fair Play Casino have both closed sites, with the company in each case citing the tax rise as a reason.
• Online GGR, by contrast, shows no clear fall, though it had already dropped sharply once the player-protection rules landed in late 2024.

Hostile environment: None of this lands in isolation. As reported by Compliance+More earlier this month, State Secretary for Legal Protection Claudia van Bruggen is preparing a total ban on online gambling advertising.

• This on top of bonus restrictions, an overarching deposit limit and a tougher CRUKS self-exclusion regime.
• Officials concluded the earlier partial advertising and sponsorship bans had not cut public exposure as intended.

Slip sliding away: Channelization is going the same way. The legal market’s share of online GGR has slipped, with trade bodies putting the black market at roughly a quarter of total activity from players based in the Netherlands.

• The new report finds player-level channelization of 91-95% and falling, with the decline underway before the first tax rise.

It’s all going wrong: Taken together, the report and the news of the gambling ad ban describe a regulated market that is no longer delivering on any of its stated objectives. The tax rise has not raised the promised revenue and the advertising restrictions have not cut exposure.

• Meanwhile, channelization is falling, operators are leaving and the good causes income the lottery model was built to protect is, at best, flat.

Face facts: The KSA and the ministry were careful to say the various effects cannot be untangled with any confidence, and they declined to pin the market’s contraction on the tax alone. But the direction of travel is hard to miss.

• A market squeezed on tax, advertising, deposits and channelization all at once is not one being optimized.
• It is one being slowly closed and, on the government’s own numbers, without even the revenue to show for it.

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