The world of gambling got a major boost in number of players and in popularity since the ascension of the internet, specifically online gambling. Gambling is simply a way to make sporting events more interesting and enjoyable. Legalizing gambling activities, our society have higher possibility to become addicted in this game in one form or another.

The Netherlands is facing this kind of situation where online gambling addiction is the main issue. The government is pursuing any possible ways to limit online gambling and having more advertising to run gambling in the entire state. It seems that the country is in collision with the European Union. The country is doing their best to follow the footsteps of the United States by increasing their efforts towards online gambling by making it illegal in processing bank transactions and other credit card companies from Dutch citizens to any foreign gambling operators.

Addiction is the main issue of the government for having an online gambling prohibition in the country with harmful negative consequences that could bring. According to De Volkskrant, The Hague has no European Union laws about gambling and only the Netherlands have rights to contradict the laws to prevent criminal activity and gambling addiction. The EU internal market commissioner, Charlie McCreevy, points out that the actions of the Dutch in preventing foreign access to online gambling is creating a monopolize gaming industry to the nation. The situation will become worst because there is only one provider of the service in the country. Monopoly creates a lot of fear to the gamblers because they mean that even in this capitalist society, people cannot get the best services for their money. The monopolies slow down innovation and efficiency, acquiring other companies when they do not have the leading services, and raising prices to make more money. He also stressed out by having a monopolistic gambling led to a questionable answer in addiction. There is no sufficient proof that the gambling crime was reduced. Excessive gambling can cause harm to the gambler or someone else in any way that leads to a certain crime. McCreevy highly believes that the country is pursuing its monopolistic gambling expansion. Like in the case of these two commercial gambling venues in the Netherlands, the state-owned De Lotto and Holland Casino.

The Dutch Supreme Court approved a measure allowing the Holland Casino, a major government-owned land-based casino operator to offer Internet casino gaming as an extension of its land-based gaming services. This form of Internet gaming is limited to traditional casino games and is available only to residents of Holland. Like many European Internet gambling models, the Netherlands does not allow its citizens to gamble online through foreign gambling operators. The European Commission made criticism to the Dutch enforced gambling laws. They wanted that the online gambling will be covered by the organization’s open market policy that could access to foreign gambling operators. Many foreign companies are trying to put up casinos in the Ducth country but all of their licenses have been denied by the government.

While part of the European Union that supports all free trade, the Netherlands has banned all online gambling. If you live in the Netherlands it is considered a felony for you to play with an online casino, though more than 400,000 people are known to break this law today.

The European Union is currently trying to convince both the Netherlands and France that online casinos can bring money into their economy and please their citizens, but as of yet the Netherlands have not budged whatsoever.

Casino gokkasten

Many citizens are understandably frustrated that playing in a casino gokkasten is not legal, but the government is struggling with how they can control or maintain the online gambling business. Though the European Union frowns on this ban of online gambling, the country refuses to budge. Unlike a lot of other countries, the Netherlands does not allow any online gaming, though they do have brick and mortar casinos for citizens to enjoy.

Unfortunately for those that like casino gokkasten, there is no indication that the Netherlands will follow in the footsteps of both Italy and the United Kingdom in the near future. It’s a shame really because both Italy and the United Kingdom once had bans on casino gokkasten and after some careful restructuring they were able to make it so that it is legal to gamble online in these countries.

The countries oversee how the businesses are run and even receive a small percentage of the funds that come from residents of their country and the same sort of system could work well for the Netherlands if they would consider it.

Because so many people in Netherlands are still managing to find ways to gamble in the online casino even though it is not legal, it makes sense for the government to look at the business model that the United Kingdom created to see how they can apply it to the Netherlands. If people are playing with a casino gokkasten anyway, it doesn’t make any sense to keep a ban on it. Instead, they should make it legal and profit from it!

It makes sense to oversee the gaming and profit from it, if at all possible, yet the European Union hasn’t yet been able to persuade the Netherlands to do this. While they are dragging their feet on this issue, many of their citizens continue to game online, and therefore it is very difficult for the country to truly criminalize something that so many people are doing.

Citizens are threatened with prosecution if they are caught, but when you look at the numbers, you can see that most people aren’t that worried about it.

The people that live in the Netherlands and play in a local casino enjoy the same games that are played all around the world. If the country would allow for its citizens to play online they could definitely have some fun. The hope is that people of the Netherlands will be able to play online legally in the future!

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