The Dutch legal online gambling sector has published its first Responsible Play Monitor, setting out how licensed operators applied their duty of care in 2025.
VNLOK, the trade association for licensed online gambling providers, presented the monitor in The Hague on 18 June. It said the report is the first broad attempt by the sector to show, in one place, how operators try to protect players.
The monitor covers VNLOK members and remains a work in progress. Still, the numbers give a rare look at day-to-day safer gambling controls inside the regulated market.
VNLOK Director Rosemarijn Dral, who was appointed to the position in May, explained: “This is an important beginning, not an end point. We want to gain better insight into which interventions are most effective and share that knowledge with regulators and care partners.”
The report revealed that during 2025, operators implemented almost 1.8 million total responsible gambling interventions. Of these, most were considered ‘light’ interventions, including more than 1.2 million pop-up messages linked to player behaviour. A single player could receive more than one message.
These light-touch interventions are aimed at nudging players before gambling behaviour becomes harder to manage.
The report also recorded stronger actions, however. Operators helped players set or lower limits 21,000 times and carried out 75,391 affordability checks. Players were advised to seek professional help 10,847 times.
Temporary exclusion was used more often than formal national exclusion. Providers excluded players from their own platforms 60,170 times as a precaution.
In 288 cases, players were reported for involuntary registration in Cruks, the Dutch central exclusion register.
VNLOK said the gap reflects the high threshold for involuntary Cruks registration. A platform can block a player from its own site directly while a forced Cruks listing requires a more complex administrative process.
Future VNLOK reports to provide wider coverage
For the gaming industry, the monitor helps to shift responsible gambling from broad promises to measurable conduct.
Operators are being asked to show what they did, how often they intervened and where safeguards stopped short.
That gives regulators, treatment providers and policymakers a clearer basis for judging whether safer gambling systems work.
VNLOK said future reports should become more uniform and easier to compare. That points to another likely pressure for operators: cleaner data, tighter internal records and more consistent reporting across the market.
The monitor also sharpens the industry’s argument against unlicensed gambling sites. Licensed operators must monitor behaviour, intervene with players and report on protection measures, while illegal sites sit outside that framework.
