When we think of gambling, we often think of glittering casinos, risky bets and fortunes won – or lost – in an instant.
Gamestate, known for its arcade halls in the Netherlands, is now coming up with something new. From now on, you can play the well-known crane machines, which you normally see at the fairground, at home. Via the website Gamestate Now, you control a real machine remotely.
Picture this: you toss a coin into a slot machine and… bam! You win $39.7 million. So that really happened. At the Excalibur Casino in Las Vegas, on a Megabucks slot machine. No joke. This is still the biggest casino win ever.
The Kansspelautoriteit in the Netherlands has imposed a hefty fine on Techno Offshore Limited. So the organisation announced on its site today.
It is impossible to imagine Belgian casinos without dice games. Both online and in land-based gaming halls, more and more players are opting for these dice games. But what exactly are dice games, and why are they such a hit in Belgium?
Professional tennis has been rocked once again by a major match-fixing scandal involving five Belgian players sanctioned by the ITIA. The athletes – Yannick Thivant, Thomas Setodji, Thomas Brechemier, Gabriel Petit and Hugo Daubias – were found guilty of manipulating matches between 2017 and 2018, in connection with a vast illegal betting network orchestrated by Grigor Sargsyan, who has already been sentenced to five years in prison.
n February 2024, Betsson AB announced the acquisition of Goldrun Casino for €27.5 million in order to gain a lasting foothold in the Dutch online gaming market. However, more than a year later, the deal has stalled, as the Kansspelautoriteit (Ksa) has still not given its approval.
Online gambling is on the rise. You no longer have to get in the car to a gaming arcade. You simply open your laptop or smartphone, choose a casino and start playing. Sounds easy, right?
You have probably seen them passing by: blackjack, roulette or a slot machine with flashing lights. Casino games have been wildly popular for years, and nowadays you play them on your phone at home just as easily as in a real casino.
Roel Veltmeijer, the entrepreneur behind Gamestate, is expanding his family-friendly arcade empire to Denmark with the opening of his fiftieth arcade at the new Center Parcs Nordborg Resort. This marks Gamestate’s first venture in Denmark, making it the eighth country the Veltmeijer Group operates in.
Lucky 7 Casino was recently criticised by the Ksa for serious breaches of its duty of care, including a customer service that was unavailable in Dutch and flaws in the protection of self-excluded players. After being warned, the operator quickly corrected certain problems, but remains under scrutiny.
Holland Casino Online has announced the appointment of Jan Paul van Heemskerck van Beest as its new director from 1ᵉʳ April 2025, succeeding Jeroen Verkroost, whose position has been axed as part of a restructuring.
Cybersecurity expert Lilith Wittmann has discovered a critical flaw in Merkur’s GraphQL interface, exposing the data of 800,000 players. This vulnerability allowed illegal casinos in Germany to exploit insecure software supplied by The Mill Adventure. After alerting the company, Wittmann found that it had cut off access to unregulated platforms, leading to the sudden closure of at least 12 gaming sites.
Finland wants to ban affiliate marketing in their new online gambling legislation. According to the Finnish government, affiliate marketing carries risks. They cite misinformation, unclear boundaries between legal and illegal providers, and the lack of consumer protection. They also see tax avoidance as a problem because many affiliates are based outside Finland.
You would think a school website is safe. Yet gambling adverts suddenly pop up. Illegal casinos use hackers to hide their ads on ordinary websites. And no one notices, until it is too late.
The Dutch authorities, via the Ksa, have warned newspapers about the illegal promotion of unauthorised gambling sites. Following an in-depth investigation, several media outlets have been singled out for carrying advertisements or links to unregistered platforms, putting gamblers at risk.
Since the regulation of the Dutch online gaming market in 2021, licensed operators have had to comply with strict rules. However, unauthorised platforms continue to attract Dutch players with promises of quick winnings. This is particularly true of Lalabet, an online gaming platform based in Costa Rica and operating for Dutch players without a legal licence.
