iGaming Daily

Martyn (00:03.971)
The first weeks of 2025 have seen regulatory authorities in Europe outline their supervisory agendas, emphasizing stricter surveillance of licenses to ensure compliance with new rules. In today's episode of iGaming Daily, SBC's content editor, Ted Menmure, will review regulatory updates in the Netherlands, where the regulators stress the importance of customer care and responsible conduct. And then in the second half of the show,

Senior business journalist Victor Kayed will provide an overview of his in-depth interview with Rumen Spetsov, Director General of Bulgaria's National Revenue Office, in which he discusses ongoing efforts to overhaul the gambling regime for both land-based and online activities. Well, hello. How are you doing today, Ted?

Ted (00:56.957)
Fine, Martin, very well. Good to be back on the pod.

Martyn (01:00.931)
Yeah. Yeah. It's been, seems to have been a while. I don't know about you, but I've already forgotten about that Christmas break. I've been so busy since we've been back. It's been, it's been crazy. And Victor, how are you? Are you back in the UK yet? Are you still, still at home in Bulgaria?

Viktor Kayed (01:18.164)
I'm still home Martin, hello, happy new year to everyone else listening, sorry. And yeah, I still remember the break because I'm just coming off annual leave. So yeah, I'm pretty good. Thank you.

Ted (01:33.641)
Sorry, I forgot to say Happy New Year to our audiences. Is that still allowed?

Martyn (01:33.912)
Nice.

Martyn (01:39.905)
Yeah.

I think so. only in the second week of January. I think we can just about get away with it. Anyway, let's dive into what's been going on in the Netherlands. Quite a lot of movement there, Ted, in the past 12 months or so. Tell us a little bit about what's been going on there.

Ted (02:07.945)
So when we analyze the Dutch market, I think you've to kind of review how the laws have been transformed in the past two years. In the context of Dutch gambling, that has seen kind of so many changes that have been applied to the COA Remote Gambling Act. So in October 2023, there came a pass laws to effectively ban media in online advertising of gambling that will further kind of expanded upon on 2024 with regards to kind of

gambling aesthetics, the use of figureheads, fame celebrities or influencers. And then furthermore, in the summer of 2024, KMA then approved a new raft of laws that made, that imposed a new mandatory deposit limit on 700 euros for adult accounts and on 300 euros for accounts under 24.

The restrictions come with the, uh, with the KSA demanding that the license and duties that customers must have one-to-one customer care checks with trained staff provided by operators and all interactions that must be recorded and kept on file with the KSA. There's also been kind of further rules on strict to kind of the impact controls on slots, which are deemed to be kind of the, highest.

risk category for Dutch gambling. So we now come to 2025 and the CASA has revised the general penalties on gambling operators in which it will apply the steepest fines of £2 million on illegal infringements. It's important to note that these penalties are just reserved for illegal activities such as black market gambling.

which the KSA states that it can double fines on rescinding incidents and previous infringements. What we're seeing basically is that the Dutch market in its context is becoming a lot tougher to maneuver in.

Martyn (04:11.651)
Sure, sure. I always raise an eyebrow when I see regulators talking about how big the fines are for unlicensed operators, how are they going to collect that money from a foreign company that has no license in the Netherlands? It's difficult to see what the deterrent is there. anyway, I think what we've seen a lot in the Netherlands over the past year is

politicians talking a lot about gambling and being tough about gambling and so on. But we're now what six, nine months into the. Since Michael Gruthason and apologies to Michael, if I butchered his surname there, into his time as the head of the regulator in the Netherlands. What what we learned about his vision for.

Ted (04:45.351)
Mm-hmm.

Martyn (05:09.573)
compliance, the licensing regime.

Ted (05:12.979)
So Michael Cruz-Fayton replaced Renny Janssen at the midpoint of last year as chairman of the KSA. And that was at the point where the regulator was imposing kind of the new deposit limits and stricter controls on games.

Kusum has had to kind of accept implementation restrictions that were authorized prior to his appointment. And I think that as chair, he's wanted to place kind of a higher focus on customer care duties and the market conduct of operators. He emphasizes a lot on that trust has to be regained by the licensees of the co-market. And kind of his vision is underlined by...

He views or he kind of prioritizes problem gambling stats and in particular those that are in the target segment of underage gambling interventions as the primary indicators of how well the market's progressing and its duties towards the consumer. And one of the kind of key license focus, one of the key parts of conduct or the license and duties that he wants to seize and he's underlined is the one-on-one customer engagements.

So he wants to kind of see those reported on, also to ensure that customer care teams has some level of kind of sophisticated training by the licensee.

And then finally, it's his view that going back to the problem gambling stats is that he believes that the operators have to provide kind of the frontline towards guiding high risk customers. So yes, one-on-one checks with high risk customers, but they have to kind of then be kind of evolve. They have to lead to a better engagement or better kind of references with Crux, which is the Dutch gambling self-exclusion system.

Ted (07:11.971)
Overall, it's important to also note that Grusman and the KSI believe that in 2025, Dutch gambling can maintain its channelization level at about 90%.

Martyn (07:25.421)
OK, that's interesting because you bring in all these controls as an extra layer of expense for operators who, you the best operators will already be looking at these things already, although the ones with the biggest budgets, but some of the others won't. And this is sort of coupled with some imminent hefty tax increases in that market. We've already seen a couple of operators withdrawal.

Ted (07:37.705)
Mm-hmm.

Martyn (07:52.729)
Do think we're likely to see more reaction from operators to the changes?

Ted (07:58.633)
Look, there's no doubt that the tax increases that have been announced. the Dutch government, at the close of 2024, announced that, well, accepted that the new budget of the Conservative coalition that will implement consecutive tax risers on gambling income. So we're going to see a tax rise in the Netherlands from 34 % to 38 % rising, rising consecutively. So

from 2025 I think it will rise to 36 % and concluding in 2026 with at 38%. As stands despite pleas from the industry and land-based gambling operators, the coalition government says that it will not review its budget with regards to any segments or any industry segments. And the gambling minister, Terne Stricken,

Can we repeat that again, cheese? So gambling minister Ten Circle stated that there could be a consideration with Dutch lotteries, but no other vertical. in the aftermath, what we've seen is, Tambola and LifeSport have departed the market, as they see no future viability in the Dutch gambling.

Martyn (09:00.493)
Yeah, just go again.

Ted (09:23.483)
So again, I think we can go back and yes, operators can stomach high compliance costs, but taxes on bottom line earnings are just too much to fathom.

Martyn (09:35.895)
Sure. Sure. mean, it's a discussion we've had about multiple markets, right, over the past, well, however long, however long we've been doing this, we've been we've been talking about the impact of those changes.

Ted (09:44.521)
Yeah, I mean what I tell to those to SPC audiences is that look tax is going to definitely be in the agenda in 2025. We've had a raft of new European governments coming and I think it's part of a lot of government revisions in the new year.

Martyn (10:07.429)
Sure. And you mentioned European governments there. There's one other, we'll just touch on this quickly, one other interesting development that Poland has proposed, well, possibly some kind of EU wide working group to look at harmonization of gambling regulation and how they, how governments manage the gambling industry. mean, do you see that?

having a short-term impact or perhaps something that is another talking shop.

Ted (10:45.033)
It's a starting point, I guess. look, Poland's taken on the presidency of the European Council for the next six months. So sets up the agenda and it put there a provision that it would start a working group, not necessarily on online gambling laws, but to tackle the black market online gambling, which it views as a threat that is taking circa about 10 billion to 11 billion.

in eurozone taxes. So it is is an imminent issue and it's one that I think needs addressing. But the problem always kind of comes back in Europe to the way kind of markets have been structured in EU policy has stated that gambling as a service in as a sector, its laws are of the domain of individual member states, it's very hard to build kind of

Martyn (11:12.965)
Mm-hmm.

Ted (11:37.927)
harmonized laws or harmonized frameworks for European gambling. And also I don't think that a lot of markets with the way that they're structured and they might have kind of state-owned monopolies or have different structures towards different gambling verticals. I don't think that they want to pursue kind of the path to kind of harmonization.

Martyn (11:59.749)
No, would be difficult, really difficult thing to achieve because the reality would be is that the countries with the toughest gambling laws, the most restrictive laws would want that as the minimum. you know, it would be huge hit on the industry and probably on tax revenues across a number of EU states if they went down that avenue.

Ted (12:26.715)
Yeah, but I think now the industry can actually come back in with what we've seen in last two years and say, look, the threat of the online gambling market and of unlicensed, on European actors targeting international compute consumers growing. I think that they can point to markets such as Germany and say that if you're carrying a 50 % exposure to to the black market.

from one sector that should be a point of concern and maybe it creates a platform to have a good discussion on what are kind of the safeguards and practices against unlicensed gambling and in which in what should be kind of an industry that generates a good kind of revenue income for four states. So there is a lot to play here.

Martyn (13:18.561)
Sure. Well, that's great. Thank you, Ted. Let's move on to another European nation, which is, as we mentioned at the start, Bulgaria. And Victor, you've got a good scoop, which we've a high profile interview about the industry there. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?

Viktor Kayed (13:45.39)
Sure, thanks for giving me the stage to do so. Yeah, I managed to get in touch with the National Revenue Agency, which acts as the gambling regulator in Bulgaria. I've politely asked for comments on the market from the director of the NRA.

Roman Spetsov, which I am grateful that he took off his time to kindly return an answer. And I did an interview with him, a very in-depth interview. I've sent in 12 questions. They all touch upon different aspects of the market in Bulgaria.

how it is positioned among the other European markets. How is it fighting? Where is it in its fight against the black market? How is financing from gambling structure there? So really in-depth interview that we've published on SBC News as a two-part

feature and I encourage everyone interested in how the Eastern European market works to go on and have a read at it. It's really insightful.

Martyn (15:16.869)
Good. I can just tell our audience it's really worth 15, 20 minutes of your time to go and read this. It's a fascinating piece. There's been a lot of talk over the last 12 months, a lot of proposals about changing the regulatory structure in Bulgaria. Where are they up to with that? what sort of activities do you see coming up in the next, say, 12 months or so?

Viktor Kayed (15:46.818)
Well, Dave, there was already a big activity in terms of regulatory changes in April last year. We've talked about it before. We've covered it on SPC News again. They've changed the gambling framework, introduced the most significant changes were made.

Regarding advertisement rules, this is something that operators wanting to enter the market should take notice of before doing so. If they've investigated Bulgaria as a market and the potential opportunities it gives prior to 2024.

Their knowledge is already out of date. So there is a whole new framework that they should read in order to keep on top of the changes that have been implemented. And it's only been eight months since this new framework has been brought into power.

So I've besides Mr. Spitzhoff, I also spoken with other experts from the NRA and they all hold the same opinion that it's too early to see how these changes are going to influence the market, which they are. Like I said, it's only been a few months after the changes. So they are all

evaluating the impact very closely and are ready to make further changes further down the line as they go if needed. So it's a very active landscape currently, even though the changes, the overhaul has been brought into power.

Martyn (18:09.463)
OK, so you mentioned the possibility of further changes down the line. Are there some particular issues they're worried about, some particular things they want to they want to fix? I think maybe it hasn't the current regulation. The last year's regulatory changes didn't go perhaps far enough or haven't worked particularly well in places.

Viktor Kayed (18:30.38)
Yeah, well, like I said, one of the key focuses of those changes were the advertising rules. I've heard from inside sources that operators are still having some troubles understanding the rules. And some of them think that they are not clear enough.

And they fear the risk of misunderstanding them. that's one of the aspects that might change potentially. They might introduce clearer rules around advertisement. Although I think that for me personally, although I'm not an operator, for me they are quite clear.

The before advertisements used to be allowed everywhere. after the, after the regulations came into force, they were banned from TV print, online and radio. they are still allowed on billboards. and there is, there is a clause that safer gambling messaging needs to be on those advertisements. though previously there wasn't one. So.

operators were free just to ignore this rule. However, they didn't. That's what's interesting about the market itself. It's really adaptive. It follows the rules from other Western markets. When big companies come here,

to enter the market. come with all these already played out practices, safer gambling rules. They come with the right tool sets to have a fair and transparent business models. And they bring it on a silver platter to the market. And here the policy makers are well...

Viktor Kayed (20:51.022)
have a head on their shoulders, as they say, to actually listen to them and take the best out of these practices and implement them into the regulations. So there is a constant back and forth between operators and the regulator that I think is already leading to a good

competitive market here in Bulgaria.

Martyn (21:26.317)
OK, well, you've actually answered my my final wrap up question, which was, will all this result in a more competitive market? So that's that's nice to hear. But Victor, Ted, thank you very much for today. You can find out more about everything we've talked about today on SBC News, where we will also be covering. The ongoing regulatory developments, not just in.

the Netherlands and Bulgaria, but I'm pretty sure across Finland, Germany, the UK and a host of other places across the rest of the year. But thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow for another edition of iGaming Daily.