Lawyer slams Dutch regulator for leaving fight against Meta to the industry
The Dutch gambling regulator has the legal tools to go after Meta and other platforms that carry illegal gambling ads, but chooses not to use them. That was the charge from Justin Franssen, partner at Franssen Tolboom Attorneys at Law, at the SBC Summit on Wednesday.
“To me it’s absolutely incomprehensible that we have a regulator that is paid a serious amount of money by the operators and continues to complain that it doesn’t have enough enforcement capabilities,” Franssen said during the panel “The Dutch Dilemma: Deposit Caps, Ad Bans and the Black-Market Boom”.
He pointed to a provision in Dutch gambling law. Originally, it only banned advertising prohibited gambling; it was later widened to cover facilitating it. “To me, what Meta and others are doing is pure facilitation,” he said. “Why are they not stepping up?”
Franssen noted that the industry is now doing the enforcement itself. VNLOK, the Dutch online gambling trade association, has sued Meta. Nederlandse Loterij has taken civil action against the illegal sites Lalabet (March 2025) and Qbet (April 2026), and won its case against the former in June.
He was equally scathing about a motion debated in the Dutch parliament on Tuesday. It proposed that the KSA should be able to act if Meta ignores requests to remove ads. “Well, it already can. It just isn’t doing so.”
VNLOK chairman Björn Fuchs also had words for the regulator. “It was really astonishing to read the gambling authority state in a national newspaper that it would rather talk and cooperate with Meta because that would be more effective in the long term,” he commented. “We’ve seen the last five years; it doesn’t add up.”
VNLOK are confident
Speaking to iGB after the panel, Fuchs said VNLOK went to court after attempts at dialogue with Meta produced only automated replies. The association is asking a Dutch judge to make Meta meet its obligations under the EU Digital Services Act (DSA).
“We feel confident,” he said. He argued that the climate has turned against the tech giant: “Who would have thought, five or ten years ago, that Meta would be charged in the US with being addictive at its core?”
He cited France and Germany, where civil courts have held Meta liable for illegal gambling ads. He also expects Meta to try to move the case to Dublin, where its EU operations are based.
Fuchs said that “politics and legislation always lag behind reality, typically by about three years”. AI-generated ads and bot accounts are widening that gap.
A Dutch study published this week shows how far AI has already moved. Ten leading AI assistants were tested, including Meta AI, and all of them named at least one unlicensed operator. Three presented unlicensed sites in ways that implied they were legal. Microsoft Copilot even produced a “Top 50 legal casinos” list containing unlicensed brands, suggesting they were all KSA-licensed.
Even so, Fuchs believes the tide is turning, saying: “And with the DSA in place, I believe the European courts are also moving in that direction.”
European push needed
When VNLOK started its proceedings in June, it also lodged a formal complaint with the European Commission. Fuchs confirmed the association is talking to Brussels. “Yes, we are in contact with various agencies at European level, though I can’t go into that.”
He described offshore operators that hold a licence as being on “a small island” but that they use cloaking and short-lived ads to target regulated markets in the manner of “a criminal organisation”. Bodies such as Interpol should ultimately be involved, he said, but the bar is high. “So let’s first make sure the gambling authorities in all our countries join forces and identify the common problems and common denominators.”
Fuchs said VNLOK shares insight with trade bodies in Denmark, Sweden, Germany, the UK, France and Spain.
Regulators, he argued, lag behind. “At gambling-authority level, it should be much higher. Meta is a European problem.
“I am confident that they are piling up evidence and insight at European level, and that they will start moving,” he added. “But for gambling, that should ramp up in the near future.”
The summons was served at the Amsterdam District Court. No hearing date has been announced and an early fight over jurisdiction could slow the case.