November 2, 2026
The Netherlands' KSA has launched two campaigns, OpenOverGokken for parents and Gokstop for at-risk young adults, as data shows 18–23-year-olds hold 22% of legal gambling accounts.
The Dutch gambling regulator wants families to talk about gambling the way they talk about sex or online safety: early, openly and before anything goes wrong. The Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) has launched two public-awareness campaigns aimed at 16- to 25-year-olds and the parents, relatives and friends around them. The message is that help is easier to find, and to accept, when gambling harm is spotted early.
Who: Kansspelautoriteit (KSA), the Netherlands' gambling regulator
Campaign 1: OpenOverGokken, for parents of 16–25-year-olds, from early November
Campaign 2: Gokstop (Gambling Stop), for young adults with gambling problems or at higher risk
Key figure: 18–23-year-olds hold about 22% of legal gambling accounts but make up only 9.2% of adults
Birthday rush: 11% of accounts opened by 18-year-olds in 2024-25 were registered on their birthday, 38% within a month
OpenOverGokken: start the conversation at home
The first campaign, OpenOverGokken ("open about gambling"), runs from early November and speaks directly to parents and carers of teenagers and young adults aged roughly 16 to 25. It asks them to bring up gambling before there is a problem, and to treat it as one of the normal subjects families discuss with young people, alongside sex and staying safe online.
The campaign is built around OpenOverGokken.nl, an information portal the KSA launched in 2025. The site offers independent information and practical tools to help parents start what can be an awkward conversation.
Gokstop: you don't need to hit rock bottom
The second campaign runs under the Gokstop banner and targets young adults who already have gambling problems or are at increased risk. Its core message is that stopping does not have to wait for a crisis; the decision can be made at any point. It also asks family and friends to look out for warning signs and to help a young person take a first step towards the national self-exclusion and support programme.
That is a clear shift in tone. Earlier Gokstop campaigns focused on what life looks like after quitting. The new material concentrates on early recognition and making help easy to reach, using everyday situations so the first step feels manageable rather than dramatic.
Why young people are the focus
The KSA says young people most often come across gambling through social media, online video, advertising and in-game content. Its own data shows how quickly many of them start once they are allowed to.
- People aged 18 to 23 account for about 22% of legal gambling accounts in the Netherlands, although they make up only around 9.2% of the adult population.
- In the first half of 2026, accounts used by 18–23-year-olds lost an average of €34 a month.
- In 2024-25, 11% of accounts opened by 18-year-olds were registered on their 18th birthday, and 38% within a month of it.
The figures on account share and monthly losses come from the KSA's annual and half-year reports, published just a week before the campaigns. The birthday spike was identified in an earlier KSA survey.
Calls to raise the online gambling age
The debate over young players is also reaching politics. Meryam Sümer, a local politician from the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), has called for national action to raise the minimum age for online gambling from 18 to 24.
The KSA is expected to publish follow-up data or an evaluation of the campaigns. Possible measures of success include changes in public awareness, traffic to OpenOverGokken.nl and the number of Gokstop registrations.
Part of a wider crackdown on youth gambling
The new campaigns are the latest step in a long series of measures aimed at young players since the Netherlands opened its regulated online gambling market in October 2021. Rapid growth in online play and heavy advertising in the first years led to political pressure, and the rules have been tightened several times since.
The most direct measure is a set of monthly deposit thresholds, in force since 1 October 2024. Players aged 18 to 24 can deposit no more than €300 a month across licensed sites before operators must check whether they can afford to gamble more; for older players the threshold is €700. Operators must also monitor accounts around the clock and step in quickly when they spot signs of harmful play. The KSA has since tightened its guidance on the financial checks, after finding that some operators counted one-off assets to justify higher limits.
The regulator has also been open about the downsides. In July 2025 it acknowledged that the deposit limits, while reducing average losses, may be pushing some players towards illegal sites that do not apply any limits at all. That is one reason prevention campaigns matter: if young people turn to unlicensed operators, rules aimed at licensed sites cannot protect them, but parents and friends still can.
Behind all of this sits Cruks, the national self-exclusion register. Anyone on it is blocked from every licensed Dutch operator, online and in land-based casinos. The Gokstop campaign's goal of making the first step easier is designed to lead young people towards that kind of help before losses grow.
Will it work?
The shift in message reflects a broader trend among European regulators: moving from warnings about the worst outcomes to normalising early conversations. Denmark's school talks follow the same logic. The KSA's own numbers show why it is trying: young adults are opening accounts the day they turn 18, and they are heavily over-represented among active players. Whether a campaign aimed at parents can change that will only become clear once the regulator publishes its evaluation, but it gives families a starting point that did not exist a few years ago.
The Dutch debate over age limits will keep the issue in the headlines either way. Proposals to raise the minimum age for online slots to 21 have already been discussed in The Hague, and calls such as Sümer's for an age limit of 24 show that some politicians want to go much further. For now, the KSA is betting that better conversations at home can protect young people before any new law arrives.
The Dutch regulator has been active on several fronts this year, from youth protection to enforcement, including a record €37.25 million fine against an unlicensed operator. Other European regulators are testing similar prevention work; Denmark's authority recently reported results from its gambling talks in secondary schools.
