The Netherlands Lottery, the Dutch state-owned gambling operator, has initiated formal civil legal proceedings against the unlicensed iGaming brand Qbet (operated by Casbit Group N.V.). In a strategic shift from traditional regulatory enforcement, the incumbent is seeking a court-ordered injunction to block the operator’s access to the Dutch market and is claiming financial damages for unfair competition.
This marks the second major civil action by the state operator following its 2025 lawsuit against the LalaBet brand, signalling a new era where licensed entities utilise private law to bypass the perceived administrative delays of regulatory fines.
Strategic Implications of Civil Enforcement in the Netherlands
The decision by a licensed incumbent to pursue civil litigation against an offshore entity introduces a new layer of legal risk for unlicensed providers and their supply chain. For executive stakeholders, the second-order effects include:
- Direct Liability for B2B Facilitators: Civil suits allow for broader discovery, potentially exposing payment processors and software providers to “facilitation” claims that standard regulatory fines often struggle to reach.
- Bypassing the “Fine Collection” Deadlock: While the regulator (KSA) often faces difficulty collecting administrative fines from offshore entities, civil judgments can be leveraged for international asset seizures and payment blocking orders.
- Precedent for Operator-Led Policing: If successful, this case may encourage other licensed operators to file joint class actions against “black market” competitors, effectively creating a self-policing market environment.
- Erosion of Channelisation Justification: By highlighting the scale of the illegal market in open court, the Netherlands Lottery is pressuring the government to grant the regulator stronger technical blocking powers, such as DNS and IP filtering.
Regulatory Context: The Shift Toward Technical Deterrence
The lawsuit coincides with a period of heightened scrutiny for both licensed and unlicensed entities in the Dutch market. The KSA has significantly increased its enforcement tempo, recently demonstrated by the KSA-Unibet AML/CFT binding instruction, a move that underscores the rigorous financial integrity standards now required of Tier-1 licensees. However, the Netherlands Lottery argues that while licensed players are held to these rigid protocols, offshore entities like Qbet continue to operate without any “duty of care” oversight, creating a profound commercial imbalance.
Targeting the Offshore Corporate Structure
The litigation specifically targets the parent entity, Curacao-based Casbit Group N.V., and its directorship. This follows a growing European trend where national courts are increasingly willing to look past offshore “shell” structures to assign liability.
Key technical focus areas of the lawsuit include:
- Market Targeting Evidence: Use of Dutch language, local payment methods (such as iDEAL-adjacent flows), and targeted marketing toward Dutch IP addresses.
- Violation of the Betting and Gaming Act: The core argument rests on the breach of Article 1(1)(a) of the Dutch Betting and Gaming Act, which prohibits offering games of chance without a domestic licence.
- Damages Quantification: The state operator is expected to present data showing the direct correlation between unlicensed volume and the loss of market share for its TOTO and online casino brands.
Outlook for Dutch Enforcement Strategy
The civil court’s decision in this case will be a watershed moment for the Dutch iGaming sector. If the court grants the requested injunction and damages, it will provide a blueprint for other European state lotteries and licensed operators to take direct action against unlicensed competition.
Arjan Blok, CEO of Netherlands Lottery, emphasised that the civil suit is a necessary escalation to protect vulnerable players and market integrity:
Players can still easily access illegal gambling sites without age checks or betting limits and with irresponsible bonuses and misleading payment methods. Currently, 200,000 Dutch people are gambling illegally. It is precisely these players who run the greatest risks, because they play more often and with more money on illegal sites. That is why the Netherlands Lottery is taking responsibility and taking the largest illegal gambling site to court. Not only the direct offender, but also everyone behind them who facilitates this site. With the goal of shutting down and keeping illegal gambling sites shut down.
By targeting “everyone behind” the platform, the lawsuit serves as a primary tool to weaponise the civil code, aiming to achieve what administrative fines have historically struggled to accomplish: the total market exclusion of high-volume unlicensed brands through the targeting of their corporate and financial facilitators.
For the broader industry, this litigation signals that the risk profile for operating in the “grey” or “black” Dutch market has escalated. It is no longer merely a regulatory nuisance; it is now a potential multi-million euro civil liability involving international asset attachment and the legal targeting of B2B supply chains.