SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
The Dutch online market is expected to undergo considerable growth once the KOA Act comes into force, with the sector expected to surpass the €1 billion mark by 2025.
As revealed in the ‘Netherlands Betting Focus’ report published by BtoBet this month, total gross gaming revenue (GGR) for the Dutch online gambling market reached €424 million in 2019 – a figure which is considerably smaller than the €2.27 billion in GGR registered for the land-based sector.
However, this figure for the online market is expected to rise in the coming years, with analysts predicting that the sector will generate €513 million GGR in 2021 and €1.27 billion by 2025.
While industry observers can expect to see online growth, BtoBet conceded that the Netherlands is ‘expected to remain largely retail in the short term and is expected to follow the growth trend registered in the French market’.
Findings suggested that there is currently a ‘sizeable difference’ between the casino and sports betting sectors across the Netherlands. This difference, BtoBet said, was ‘further highlighted in the land-based sector where casino dominates in terms of the GGR generated’.
The report read: “On the other hand this market share diminishes in the online sector, with forecasts foreseeing the gap between the two sectors to further decrease after the regularisation of the online market.
“H2’s statistics assume that the introduction of the KOA law will have little influence on the size of the land-based casino sector, with the dip for the land-based casino sector in 2020 not linked to the introduction of the KOA Act, but to the measures implemented related to the Covid-19 pandemic, and which resulted in the closure of the casinos and retail gambling shops.
“At the same time the statistics indicate that whilst the sports betting sector enjoys a greater market share in the online rather than in land-based channels, the market is still dominated by the casino vertical, and this trend is expected to be maintained even after the introduction of the KOA Act.”
The KOA Act was initially planned to be ratified into law on 1 July 2020, meaning that the Dutch online market could open from January 2021. However, due to the pandemic, this date was pushed back. From 1 October, those with a Dutch online gambling licence will be permitted to operate.
For more data on the Dutch gambling market and information on BtoBet tools for increasing player engagement, you can read the report in full HERE.
