The Netherlands will "make life miserable" for Curaçao gambling mafia
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THE HAGUE - The Netherlands will "make life miserable" for the gambling mafia on Curaçao. This was announced by chairman René Jansen of the Board of Directors of the Netherlands Gaming Authority (Ksa) on Monday evening in the broadcast of Nieuwsuur.
On Friday, a new gambling law will be introduced in the Netherlands that will end the total ban on offering online games of chance. Ten operators will initially be eligible for a permit. Companies that have illegally targeted the Dutch market with their web casinos in recent years are excluded.
No supervision
The majority of these are located in Willemstad. Together they keep thousands of gambling sites up and running, good for billions in turnover, without the Curaçao authorities exercising supervision. They are not expected to be impressed by the "sky-high fines" that the Dutch Minister Sander Dekker of Justice is promising.
Jansen acknowledged at Nieuwsuur that fines previously imposed by the Ksa on Curaçao companies (sometimes up to half a million euros) are often not paid. The providers are difficult to trace because they are hidden from view by local trust and law firms. A few years ago, De Nederlandsche Bank urged the Central Bank of Curaçao and Sint Maarten to tighten up its supervision, but the bank has never taken this seriously.
Hard demand
“What we can do is make the providers' lives miserable,” says Jansen. One of the weapons is to thwart payment transactions between illegal online casinos and players. But Dutch hopes are mainly based on the pressure that Undersecretary of Kingdom Relations Raymond Knops is exerting on the Curaçao government. Restricting the local gambling mafia is a hard requirement for future liquidity support from The Hague.
The Pisas cabinet does not seem to be overflowing with enthusiasm. The hesitation may have been prompted by the liquidation of Helmin Wiels in 2013. The island's most popular politician at the time was widely believed to have been targeted by assassins on behalf of the gambling mafia. Just before his death, Wiels had announced that he would tackle the sector.
Reputation
Curaçao has the dubious reputation of being the world capital of the gambling industry. There is a lively trade in (sub) licenses and there is no supervision. Several investigations have revealed links to international gangs, money laundering and terrorist organizations through their own gambling sites. Players are also massively scammed by paying out only a fraction of the (billions) turnover.
From the Netherlands alone, an estimated 500 million euros is spent annually on illegal online games of chance, originating from around 800,000 players. The new gambling law must ensure that illegal providers are taken out of their sails. License holders must meet strict requirements, among other things to prevent money laundering, but also to prevent gambling addicts from losing everythin.
