Dutch Gaming Commission sanctions hosting company of illegal operators

The Dutch Gaming Authority (kansspelautoriteit – KSA) imposes a binding instruction on DigitalOcean because of two illegal affiliates. This company was supposed to take these affiliates offline before March 22, 2024, but this has still not happened.

The gambling authority was unable to trace the owners and therefore turned to the hosting company DigitalOcean, which is used for two illegal affiliates (Casinowithoutregistration and Nieuwe-casinos).

DigitalOcean is a large American hosting party and provider of cloud services and virtual private services (VPS). They are listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Currently operating 15 data centers, one of which is located in Amsterdam.

Similar situation with Cloudflare

By the way, at the end of November 2023 there was a similar situation with another company. The gambling authority then imposed instructions on Cloudflare, because Cloudflare also offers its security services to two illegal affiliates.

The instructions for Cloudflare have now been withdrawn, because the company did not have the technical capabilities to take these websites offline. However, this is an option with hosting parties. Cloudflare has therefore agreed with the Gaming Authority that they can inquire about the hosting parties behind these illegal affiliates.

Legal sanction DigitalOcean

DigitalOcean was asked on April 24, 2023 to take the illegal affiliates offline, but they did not respond. To do this, a court order is required and the gaming authority did not have this at the time.

The Ksa therefore announced that it would impose a binding instruction, but again the same response followed from DigitalOcean, namely that they wanted to see a court order before taking action.

The KSA therefore asked the District Court of Rotterdam for authorizations to send with the decision. These authorizations were received by the Ksa on January 26. On February 23, the binding change was imposed on DigitalOcean for encouraging illegal gambling.

Four weeks

DigitalOcean was then given four weeks to take action against the illegal affiliates. If DigitalOcean does not stop the violations before March 22, the Ksa could take follow-up steps, such as a penalty or a fine.

Gamblingclub saw that the illegal affiliates are both still active. It’s unclear if the KSA needs to start from 0 when the affiliates would just change hosting company.

Same practices in Belgium

Illegal casinos are also more active than ever here. Belgian law has formally prohibited advertising for online casinos since July 1, 2023, but in doing so they open the door wide to illegal casinos, as you could previously read at GamblingClub. Illegal casinos are offered to the Belgian public via various affiliate pages that operate in a similar manner.

It is therefore important that you as a player continue to play at casinos that have a license from the Gaming Commission.