Dutch Lottery files lawsuit against illegal gambling site Lalabet
The Dutch Lottery is taking the gambling company Lalabet to court, demanding that the Costa Rican-based company cease its activities in the Netherlands, Financieele Dagblad reported.
The legal gambling organization says it is losing millions of euros in turnover due to competition from illegal gambling providers like Lalabet, though Dutch Lottery director Arjan Blok insisted to FD that the lawsuit is not about the money. According to him, it is about protecting Dutch players.
Legal online casinos have to adhere to various rules to protect players from gambling addiction. There are strict advertising rules and gambling limits after which players must prove they can afford to continue. Online casinos that are not licensed in the Netherlands, but are still available here, can ignore those rules. Players who reach their limits on legal sites can simply switch to an illegal one and continue gambling.
Blok said that the lawsuit against Lalabet is a last-ditch attempt to curb the activities of illegal gambling companies. The lawsuit is against Lalabet because the Costa Rican company is the largest illegal provider of gambling games in the Netherlands.
Last year, the Gambling Authority imposed a penalty on the former parent company of Lalabet for offering illegal gambling on the Lalabet website in the Netherlands. However, that did not result in the Lalabet site going offline in the Netherlands. According to the Dutch Lottery, Lalabet just transferred to another gambling group and continued its illegal activities.
“We believe that the back door for illegal providers must be firmly closed,” a spokesperson for the Dutch Lottery, the gambling organization behind the Staatsloterij and TOTO, among others, told ANP.
