Court ruling allows KSA to continue operating Dutch lottery as a monopoly

The Netherlands’ Administrative Law Division has ruled that the Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) can use a monopoly when granting the licence to organise lotteries.
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The NetherlandsAdministrative Law Division of the Council of State has given permission to the Kansspelautoriteit (KSA), the country’s gaming authority, to use a monopoly when granting the licence to organise lotteries in three different rulings.

The Administrative Jurisdiction Division ruled that the KSA was consistent in issuing a single lotto licence to Dutch lottery operator Lotto BV while issuing multiple charity lottery licences.

The Division rejected appeals made by private gaming companies against the monopoly system and has ruled that the single-permit system for organising lotteries is justified.

The question of whether a single permit system for state lotteries is allowed was previously raised in May 2018, where it was ruled that the KSA needed to better justify whether the so-called dual system, which only grants one licence for lottos and has multiple licences available for charity lotteries, is ‘horizontally consistent’.

This means that a comparison between the different games of chance and the licensing systems applicable to them must show that the objectives of the gaming system are ‘pursued in a coherent and systematic manner’.

The Division declared that while there are similarities between the state lotteries and charity lotteries, there are also important differences, the key variation being Lotto aims to have as many people as possible gamble through a legal provider. Therefore, the market mustn’t be divided among several providers.

If it was, it was noted that there is a risk that none of the providers would be strong enough to present a large prize pool with a function of directing as many customers as possible to the legal offering.

The Division also commented that the number of draws for lottos is much higher than for charity lotteries and lottos contribute a much lower percentage of their proceeds to charities.

In conclusion, the Division ruled that the KSA has now sufficiently reasoned that the difference in licensing systems is horizontally consistent, meaning the monopoly for the lotto licence will be maintained.