Dutch Casino and Card Room Gaming

The Netherlands Gaming Control Board was established in 1996 to oversee the casino gaming industry. Gambling is legal in the Netherlands, but is controlled by the government under a state monopoly, Holland Casino. The company began operations in 1976 when it opened the first Dutch casino. However, at the end of 2012, the new Netherlands government announced a reform package to legalize online gaming and to sell Holland Casino in order to end the monopoly and open the market to other domestic and foreign operators.

The Holland Casino, also known as the National Foundation for the Exploitation of Casino Games in the Netherlands, operates casinos in major cities within the Netherlands, the largest in Amsterdam. These casinos attract nearly a million visitors a year. All the profits from these casinos go into the Dutch treasury.

In addition to casinos, the Netherlands has a large number of gaming machine outlets. Legislation passed in 2001 divided non-casino gaming locations into categories according to traffic type and assigned limitations on quantity and type of gaming machines allowed in each type of venue.

In July 2008, the government passed a law banning smoking in public places, including casinos. That same year, the Dutch government also passed a gaming law that set the tax rate for both casinos and AWP machines at 29%.

In March 2011, the Dutch coalition government announced a new gambling framework that would open the country's online gambling market (including casinos, lotteries, poker, sportsbooks and bingo) to licensed domestic and foreign gaming companies. The Remote Betting and Gaming Bill was submitted to the House of Representatives aiming to accomplish this goal and to privatize the Holland Casino by 2017, but the Dutch Senate did not approve it until 2019. The legislation is now expected to go in effect in 2020 or 2021.