2021 GiH Conference: Ask the CEOs, new speakers & Covid-19 relaxations for UK travelers
In less than two weeks – on September 28 – the 2021 Gaming in Holland Conference will take place in Amsterdam.
Our full program is available here.
Ask the CEOs
The 2021 GiH Conference will feature a CEO panel that consists of the chief executives of the Netherlands’ largest gambling operators: Sigrid van Aken (Novamedia), Erwin van Lambaart (Holland Casino), Eric Olders (JVH gaming), and Niels Onkenhout (Nederlandse Loterij).
Conference attendees are kindly invited to ask their own questions of these CEOs. This is your chance to gain unique insights and satisfy your curiosity!
Please submit your question(s) to info@gaminginholland.com, stating the name(s) of the CEO(s) you wish to address.
We will select the most interesting questions and include these in our panel discussion.
New speakers We are also very happy to announce two new speakers:
Dennis van Breemen, Head of Integrity and Gambling Policy, Ministry of Justice & Security, will look ahead to what policy changes we can still expect in the coming years.
Prof. dr. Reinout Wiers, Professor of developmental psychopathology at the University of Amsterdam, will share some of the latest scientific insights into sensible responsible gaming and prevention measures.
New Covid-19 relaxations announced Yesterday, the Dutch government announced new relaxations of its Covid-19 measures. These new measures, which will enter into force from September 25, include the following two provisions:
When visiting an event that requires proof or vaccination or a negative test result, social distancing will no longer be required.
Fully vaccinated travelers from the UK will no longer need to quarantine after arriving in the Netherlands.
Please note that all GiH Conference visitors must show proof of vaccination, or a negative test result no older than 24 hours prior to the start of the event.
Due to the imminent opening of the regulated online market in the Netherlands on October 1, the 2021 GiH Conference is an event that is not to be missed!
Register now: https://bit.ly/3vJHiPU
Interxion/GiH business drinks – Sept. 27
Join us on Monday, September 27, from 18:00-20:00, at the Interxion drinks and networking event, co-hosted with Gaming in Holland. The event will take place the night before the 2021 Gaming in Holland Conference.
If you would like to attend, please register by sending an email to: marketingnl@interxion.com.
Belgian-Dutch basketball league welcomes betFIRST as title sponsor
The BNXT League, the new, cross-border Belgian-Dutch basketball league, welcomes Belgian sports betting and casino operator betFIRST as its new title sponsor. BetFIRST has committed itself for three seasons to the BNXT League, which from now on will be known as the betFIRST BNXT League.
Wim van de Keere, General Manager of the BNXT League, is pleased with the new sponsorship agreement: “betFIRST understands sports, understands marketing, and is a major player in Belgium and, hopefully, soon also in the Netherlands. This makes them the right partner to give us a flying start.”
Timothy Mastelinck, CMO of betFIRST Group: “The betFIRST BNXT League is a great initiative that will undoubtedly give the sport a big boost and offer Belgian/Dutch talent even more opportunities to develop. Basketball is a modern sport, which fits our business and our customers very well. We are already an established operator in Belgium, but we certainly also intend to apply for a remote license in the Netherlands.”
Upcoming events
The following events may be of interest to the GiH community.
Kindred Group will host the 6th annual Sustainable Gambling Conference on 5 October. The event will take place online and is free to attend.
Get ready for the 2021 Gaming in Germany Conference, which will take place 25 October at the Grand Hyatt Berlin.
The half-day event Reputation Matters: UK Gambling's Future at Stake, which takes place on 2 November in London, event will take an in-depth look at the current and expected regulatory pressure facing the UK gambling industry.
SiGMA Europe has been rescheduled to 16 – 18 November, 2021.
The Betting on Sports America conference and expo has been scheduled for 30 November – 2 December, 2021 and will bring together all the major players in the fast-growing North American sports betting industry.
The World Gaming Executive Summit is returning live on 6 – 8 December, 2021 at the W Hotel, Barcelona.
ICE London and iGB Affiliate London have been scheduled to take place 1 – 3 February, 2022.
New online trade association highlights disagreements in Dutch gambling landscape Five Dutch incumbent gambling operators (Holland Casino, Janshen-Hahnraths Group, JVH gaming, Nederlandse Loterij, and ZEbetting) have founded a new online trade association, Vergunde Nederlandse Online Kansspelaanbieders (“Licensed Dutch Online Gaming Operators” – VNLOK).
VNLOK's first accomplishment is the launch of a new voluntary advertising code, the Reclamecode Kansspelen (“Advertising Code Games of Chance” – ROK), which will enter into force later this month. One of the advertising code's aims is to place voluntary restrictions on the amount of online gambling advertising, in order to avoid a public and political backlash, and eventual future additional restrictions.
Yet while the new advertising code explicitly limits the amount of advertising for online gambling services, land-based gambling services are excluded from these restrictions, which has drawn the ire of the Netherlands’ other online gambling trade association NOGA, which represents several major international online operators, including Kindred and Bet365.
VNLOK also seeks to promote a “safe online gambling market in which there is no room for illegal operators.” For at least part of the VNLOK's membership, this means that all unlicensed offerings must become completely unavailable to Dutch consumers as soon as fully licensed alternatives are available when the regulated market opens.
This position is aimed directly at those operators, many of which are represented by NOGA, who are subject to the cooling-off period – a period of up to 33 months during which these operators must refrain from “actively targeting” the Dutch market in order to remain eligible for a Dutch remote license.
For now, therefore, there will be two competing trade associations in the Netherlands, one of which represents the interests of incumbent land-based operators that intend to expand online, while the other seeks to facilitate the market entry of international, online competitors.
Other news
Former Novomatic Netherlands CEO Paul Strikers, who left the company last year, will enter the iGaming affiliate sector.
Holland Casino Utrecht has opened its new premises.
BetBlocker and casino operator L&L Europe have launched a Dutch-language gambling block app.
Sportradar Group, the global sports betting and data provider, has announced its initial public offering of 19 million shares at $27.
Interpol’s anti-illegal gambling operation SOGA VIII (short for soccer gambling) has led to thousands of raids and the arrest of some 1,400 suspects across Asia and Europe. Authorities seized USD 7.9 million in cash, as well as computers and mobile phones connected to nearly USD 465 million in bets.
More than half of the United States now offers legal sports betting, just three years after it was allowed by the U.S. Supreme Court.