711 Group has reiterated that it has ‘always acted in good faith and within the legal framework in place at the time’ in the Dutch iGaming market after receiving a fine of almost €900,000 from Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) for duty of care violations.
In a statement to iGaming Expert, Tom De Backer, Group CEO and Co-Founder, said that the operator is investigating its potential next steps and remains committed to ‘strengthening and optimising’ its duty of care and responsible gambling measures.
711 BV was fined a total of €886,000 by the KSA for failing to comply with the duty of care after an investigation by the Dutch gambling regulator discovered failures from February 2022 to June 2024.
Ten player files were requested by the regulator as part of its investigation, from individuals who suffered high losses, gambled for a high number of days and placed bets at night, with violations found in all files.
Michel Groothuizen, Chair of the KSA, said: “We have observed that not all providers implemented their duty of care equally well from the opening of the market. We have therefore conducted additional investigations, which are now resulting in various duty of care fines.
“At the same time, we have further tightened the requirements regarding the duty of care to prevent excesses such as those we are seeing here in the future.”
The KSA noted in a statement that players’ behaviour wasn’t properly analysed by 711 and appropriate intervening measures weren’t taken, leaving players’ gambling behaviour open to getting out of control and potentially causing significant losses.
‘Always acted in good faith’
However, De Backer has stated that 711 has always operated within the legal framework that was in place at the time in the Dutch iGaming market and will be exploring its next steps as a result of the KSA fine.
De Backer said: “Since entering the Dutch market, we have always taken our duty of care extremely seriously and made player protection a top priority. Our mission has consistently been to safeguard every player from the risks of problem gambling.
“While we respect the Dutch Gambling Authority’s (KSA) assessment, we regret the decision to impose a fine, as we have always acted in good faith and within the legal framework in place at the time. We are currently investigating our potential next steps.
“In the meantime, we remain fully committed to continuously strengthening and optimising our duty of care and responsible gambling procedures to ensure the highest standards of player protection.”
Duty of care was one of the KSA’s five key themes published in its supervisory agenda for 2026 earlier this year, alongside tackling illegal gambling operators, protecting vulnerable groups, supervising advertising and supervising compliance with the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorist Financing Act (Wwft).
