The Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) has taken action against Optdeck Service, the Dutch operator of the prominent Unibet brand, with a €450,000 ($524,160) fine.
Owned by France’s FDJ, Unibet’s domain in the Netherlands has been punished for offering bets on prohibited markets.
This relates to soccer games, with users able to place wagers on corners, yellow cards, and matches involving players under the age of 21.
These included the Under-21 fixture between England’s Wolverhampton Wanderers and Southampton in October 2023, and another Under-21 game between Sunderland and Bristol City in February 2024.
Overall, a total of 214 Under-21 matches were available for betting, with the violations taking place between October 2022 and May 2025.
As a result, the Kansspelautoriteit has issued a weekly penalty of €75,000, capped at €450,000.
“The KSA sees insufficient improvement and a real chance of repetition,” said a statement from the Dutch regulator.
“According to Dutch gambling legislation, it is not allowed to organise bets on certain matches and competition components. This is to protect the integrity of the sport and to prevent manipulation of these sports bets.”
The Kansspelautoriteit has estimated that Unibet generated revenue of around €300,000 from the outlawed bets, with the maximum penalty of €450,000 representing 1.5 times this amount.
The penalty order of €75,000 per week will be payable if Unibet fails to withdraw the prohibited bets within three weeks of the penalty order, or in the event of a repeated breach of the rules.
The KSA continues to hold operators to account within a stringent framework and in recent weeks, the body confirmed it will increase monitoring of the Control Database (CDB) for licensed operators.
Recent work undertaken by the KSA utilized the CDB to perform automated checks on all gambling license holders, but this revealed at least one potential failing for each operator.
The Kansspelautoriteit has strongly warned the companies that maintaining accurate, timely, and compliant data in the CDB is a legal requirement, as part of their license. Operators need to ensure that this information is as complete as possible, at all times, with corrections to be made immediately, as soon as required.
Image credit: Unibet
