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About Space Fortune
The Commission launched its investigation into various reports of insider betting on the election date in June 2024 after Ladbrokes flagged a bet placed by Williams, who was recorded as a politically exposed person.
Further bets flagged by operators involved other politically sensitive individuals, including Metropolitan Police officers and political advisers. The Commission charged 15 people total in April 2025. Four have now pleaded guilty.
The offences relate to special betting markets that let customers wager on the exact date of the general election.
About Space Fortune
Beyond raising the age limit to 21, Van Dijk called for a complete reversal of the Netherlands’ 2021 online gambling legalisation, which helped establish a reasonably mature legal gambling market for the sector, until tighter restrictions for players, and increased taxes, struck licensed operators in recent years.
Van Dijk also voiced his opinion that all gambling advertising should be banned, including for lotteries and land-based casinos.
He also questioned the government’s involvement with the state-owned entities Holland Casino and Nederlandse Loterij, especially in its assessment on how to limit gambling harms.
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While the intention is to protect vulnerable households and ensure welfare is spent on essential needs, proposed measures are being complicated by legal, technical and privacy obstacles.
Harris Tsangarides, executive director of the Gaming & Casino Supervision Commission, said his department had noticed spikes in gambling activity coinciding with GMI payment dates, prompting the regulator to consider “technical solution” to cross-reference GMI beneficiary lists with casino membership records.
An issue raised by Giannis Vasiliadis, director of WBAS, was the limited access to recipients’ banking information. This limited data can hint at suspicious activity but cannot conclusively verify gambling transactions.
