The Dutch KSA’s Record €24.8M Fine: What It Signals for Offshore Operators

On 10 March 2026, the Dutch Gambling Authority — the Kansspelautoriteit, or KSA — issued its largest fine in history. Novatech, the offshore operator behind Qbet.com and 55Bet.com, was handed a penalty of €24,846,000 for offering unlicensed online gambling to players in the Netherlands. A second operator, Fortaprime SRL, received a separate fine of approximately €1.8 million for running a portfolio of unlicensed brands including Supraplay and AmonBet. Both cases share the same essential failure: deliberate, sustained targeting of a regulated market without a licence.

The facts are straightforward. KSA investigators were able to register accounts, deposit funds, and participate in gambling on both operators’ platforms without encountering any technical restriction preventing access from the Netherlands. There was no geo-blocking. There was no age verification. Both operators accepted cryptocurrency and anonymous payment methods — factors the regulator treated as aggravating, given the money laundering risk they introduce. Novatech had previously been issued an administrative order to stop its illegal operations. It did not comply.

The scale of Novatech’s fine reflects the scale of its revenues. The KSA calculated the penalty based on estimated turnover generated from Dutch players — a methodology available under Dutch law when standard penalties are considered disproportionate to the harm caused. KSA chairman Michel Groothuizen was direct about the limitations this exposed: Dutch law caps enforcement fines at ten percent of global turnover. In Novatech’s case, that cap produced a figure of €24.8 million. Without it, Groothuizen stated publicly, the fine would have exceeded €100 million — a figure he considered more appropriate to the severity of the conduct.

That observation matters beyond the Netherlands. It reflects a tension regulators across jurisdictions are increasingly willing to name: that enforcement frameworks designed for smaller, less sophisticated markets have not kept pace with the revenue capacity of offshore multi-brand operators. Novatech generated hundreds of millions of euros from Dutch players. The maximum available sanction was roughly a quarter of what the regulator considered proportionate. Offshore operators capable of absorbing that kind of fine as a cost of business are not being deterred — they are being priced.

The practical enforcement challenge is equally significant. Neither Novatech nor Fortaprime has a physical presence in the Netherlands. Both are registered offshore — Novatech in Curaçao, where 55Bet holds a Curaçao Gaming Control Board licence. The KSA cannot compel payment through standard Dutch enforcement mechanisms. Collection depends on international cooperation, asset tracing, and — in practice — the willingness of other jurisdictions to assist. What the KSA can do, and has done, is impose the fine, publicise the conduct, and build a compliance record that other regulators can reference.

For licensed operators, and for businesses seeking licences in regulated markets, the signal from this case is not subtle. Regulators in mature gambling markets — the Netherlands, the UK, Germany, Sweden — are investing in enforcement capacity, tightening their view of what constitutes targeting of their players, and becoming more explicit about the aggravating factors they will weight heavily: absence of age verification, acceptance of anonymous payment methods, and non-compliance with prior orders. The Dutch case follows a pattern. In 2024, the KSA fined Gammix nearly €20 million. In February 2026, Polymarket was fined for operating without a licence. The direction of travel is consistent.

For operators building or restructuring their compliance frameworks, the Novatech case is a reminder that regulatory exposure is not binary. Operating without a licence is not a grey area — it is a deliberate choice that regulators are increasingly resourced and motivated to pursue. The question is not whether enforcement will follow, but when, and at what cost.

At Kybri Consulting Limited, we work with gambling and gaming businesses at the licensing stage and beyond — helping operators structure their regulatory approach, build compliant AML/CFT frameworks, and engage with regulators in the markets that matter. If you are assessing your licensing position or looking to establish operations in a regulated jurisdiction, we would be glad to assist.