Bingoal still sentenced to pay €400,000 for unauthorized advertising
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13 Dec 2024 •
Reading time: 2 minutes Bingoal was previously fined €400,000 for sending advertising emails to young adults, they appealed against this but were still sentenced in default to pay the full amount. The objection of Bingoal.nl was declared unfounded.
November 27, the day that the court of The Hague made a ruling on the Dutch legal online casino regarding the case that Bingoal had brought against the Dutch Gaming Authority (Ksa). They appealed against the fine that the Ksa had already imposed in 2023 for advertising emails to young adults. Incidentally, they were not the only party that was convicted for this.
Bingoal claims that the regulations were very unclear at the time and they cited the other sanctions that were nevertheless imposed on Betcity, Bet365, Jacks and TOTO for the same violation. To demonstrate that it was very unclear for various providers and that they had therefore unintentionally ended up in this situation.
The judge did not agree with the argumentation:
“The fact that other licensees have also violated the ban by sending emails to young adults is no reason to consider the ban unclear.”
Bingoal went further and indicated that the Ksa had not even imposed a fine for other major violations such as the Loyalty Program of Circus and Holland Casino. Both also major violations due to the targeted offer to young adults. But the judge briefly indicated that these are different situations that have nothing to do with each other.
Fine too high because payment charges were not taken into account
Bingoal also substantiated that the fine was disproportionate to the turnover. Companies such as Bingoal, which are sportsbook-first, often report the total bets on the website as turnover, which makes the turnover seem much higher compared to casino-first companies that report more on the total bets – total wins as turnover. This means that fines linked to turnover are automatically higher. Bingoal indicated that the monthly payment costs of the fines (the winnings to the players) still had to be deducted from this and that the effective turnover is much lower. The judge did not follow again and ordered to keep the 79 million, the 1st quarter turnover of 2023 as a basis.
Bingoal therefore sees a hefty fine end up in the accounts because when gambling club looks at Bingoal’s annual figures, they see a gross margin of €4.37 million which ultimately ends in a profit of €315,000 after deduction of the costs. This means that it is very likely that Bingoal will still end up making a loss that year. (In the event that they have not yet paid part of the fine to the Ksa).
The Belgian gambling company still has the option to appeal and challenge the ruling.