Gambling ads have doubled since online casinos were legalized
The number of gambling advertisements has doubled since last year, the Volkskrant reported based on research by Nielsen. In October and November 2020, there were 170,066 gambling commercials in the Netherlands. This year there were 366,631 in that same period.
The rise in gambling ads is mainly due to the legalization of online gambling in October. Eleven casinos in the Netherlands have a license for online gambling.
Of the eleven, Holland Casino spent the most money on advertising during October and November, dropping 6.4 million euros on commercials for its online offering. Toto spent nearly 4.6 million euros. The two firms are owned by the Dutch state. FairPlayCasino has spent 3.3 million euros, followed by BataviaCasino, which paid 3.2 million euros for advertising, and the 2.6 million euros spent by Tombola, the newspaper reported.The money allowed for a total of about 370,000 gambling advertisements during the two-month period, according to Nielsen. Roughly 273,000 of them were for online gambling. That on its own eclipsed the 170,000 adverts for offline gambling during the same two-month period last year. Nielsen data also showed that about 88 percent of gambling advertisements appear on websites, including social media platforms, which are not as well-regulated as television adverts. Gambling spots can only appear on television during specific times of the day to prevent barraging younger people with gambling messages.
A majority of members of the Tweede Kamer are concerned about the increase in gambling advertisements. They said the commercials can lead to a rise in people addicted to gambling
