Dutch wager €500 million annually at online gambling sites

Almost 1.5 million Dutch people sometimes or often gamble on online gambling sites. The total spent on these sites amounts to about 500 million euros a year.

This is according to a study done by Motivaction among 17 thousand Dutch people over the age of 18, AD reports. The study was commissioned by Holland Casino.

15 percent, 1.5 million people, of the respondents indicated that they sometimes play bingo, poker, roulette or blackjack on online gambling sites, nearly 800 thousand of them do so at least four times a year. Online sports betting is also popular.

These online gamblers spend about 26 euros a month, leading Motivaction to estimate the Dutch market at a minimum of 500 million euros per year. As online gambling is illegal in the Netherlands, the treasury is losing out on about 100 million euros a year in taxes that could have been collected.

Holland Casino thinks that Motivaction's estimation is very conservative. The casino points to Denmark, where internet gambling is legal. The Danish population of 5.6 million people gambled away 338 million euros online in the first 9 months of the year. With about three times as many inhabitants, the Dutch online gambling market may well be over a billion euros.

The Dutch government recently announced intentions to allow online sports gambling, but with strict restrictions to prevent match fixing.