Well-known casino turns out to be fake: gambling regulator has 26 copies removed within 48 hours
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11 Oct 2026 •
Reading time: 3 minutes
The name looks familiar and the website resembles that of a legal casino. Yet after clicking, a visitor ends up on an illegal gambling site. The Kansspelautoriteit (Ksa) is warning about copied casino websites and recently had 26 misleading addresses under .co.nl removed. All of the reported sites were taken offline within a maximum of 48 hours.
According to the Dutch regulator, almost all 26 websites were copies of sites belonging to licensed operators. Their creators used recognisable names and a different web address to redirect visitors to illegal gambling offers. In this way, the trust associated with an existing casino brand is used to lead players to another operator.
86 websites already reported and removed
The Ksa reported the 26 websites to the operator of .CO.NL. According to the regulator, the operator cooperated well and made the addresses inaccessible within two days. In total, 86 websites have now been reported to and removed by this operator. The recent group of 26 is part of that total.
The action targets the misleading websites that redirect visitors. This does not automatically mean that the illegal casinos behind them have also disappeared. It does, however, interrupt a route through which players are sent to unlicensed gambling offers under the name of a trusted brand.
Why the full web address matters
A familiar name in the address bar is not enough to identify a casino. The part that follows that name may be different. Anyone who looks only at the logo, colours or brand name may therefore fail to notice that they are visiting a copy.
In addition, .co.nl is technically not a separate country-code domain such as .nl. It consists of subdomains under co.nl, as SIDN explains in its explanation of the difference between .nl and .co.nl. The ending itself is not proof of fraud. In this case, the issue concerns specific websites that, according to the Ksa, misled visitors and redirected them to illegal gambling offers.
Belgian casino brands are also being copied
For Belgian players, this method is familiar. Gambling Club previously discovered more than twenty fake websites imitating PepperMill Casino. Some names differed only slightly from the original. Visitors who clicked on parts of the page were redirected to another platform.
Addresses copying well-known casino names also appeared in the recent expansion of Belgium’s blacklist with 31 gambling sites. These are separate cases: the Ksa report does not prove that the same parties are behind the Belgian copies. They do, however, reveal the same problem for consumers: a familiar appearance can hide where someone is actually being sent.
Check the destination before entering your details
That is why it is important to check the full address, including after clicking a button. An unexpected redirect to a different casino name should raise attention. If in doubt, do not enter login or payment details. A logo or a copied licence reference is not confirmation that the website belongs to the genuine operator.
For Belgian visitors, the local licence also matters. Our explanation of legal online casinos in Belgium helps distinguish licensed operators from unlicensed ones. A Dutch licence does not automatically count as Belgian authorisation.
The Ksa asks visitors to report suspicious operators and redirect sites. This can be done through the official reporting point for gambling-related problems. Report the exact web address and, if known, the destination to which the page redirects. That difference between the trusted-looking front end and the actual destination can help identify a new copy.