NGA publishes several important documents in preparation for licensing process

Last week the Netherlands Gambling Authority (“NGA”) published several important documents regarding the licensing process for remote gambling. This mainly concerns the (almost) final versions of previously published draft documents. We have listed the most important ones below:

• Remote Gambling Policy Rule – This policy rule deals with the NGA’s assessment of a licence application and with the conditions that may be attached to the licence.
• Remote Gambling Model licence – This document shows roughly what will be stated in a remote gambling licence.
• Responsible Gambling Policy Rule – In this policy rule, the NGA elaborates on the legal obligations with regard to advertising and addiction prevention.
• Online gambling inspection scheme (scheme for the conformity assessment) – This document describes how the licence applicant’s game system must be inspected by an inspection body in order to comply with the conditions under the Remote Gambling Act.
• AML guideline – In this guideline, the NGA provides tools for gambling operators to comply with the obligations under the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Prevention Act.

The NGA has indicated that the first four documents mentioned above are “preliminary final versions”. The Authority says in its communication calendar on its website that these publications will in principle not be further amended, but that the documents cannot become officially final until the Remote Gambling Act enters into force on 1 April 2021. In any event, those parties who actually want to submit a licence application in April 2021 will have to work with these versions (and hope that indeed (almost) nothing will change in the actual final versions of these documents).