The benefits of regulating online gambling in the Netherlands far outweigh the costs. This is what emerges from the cost-benefit analysis presented today to the House of Representatives by Minister Weerwind, carried out by the research agency Atlas Research. The so-called welfare effect of the Remote Gambling Act amounts, on balance, to 502 million euros.
In April 2022, Legal Protection Minister Franc Weerwind shared an update with the House of Representatives on the gambling dossier. In that letter he replied, among other things, to some parliamentary questions from the SP group and the Christian Union. These parties wanted the minister to provide information on the social costs of gambling. Weerwind announced that he was exploring the possibility of carrying out a social cost-benefit analysis. Now, nearly a year and a half later, the minister has shared that analysis with the House.
The report was written by Atlas Research and outlines the social consequences of the Remote Gambling Act (Koa). The study compared the Dutch gaming market in 2019 with the situation in 2022.
The costs and benefits of 2019 are compared with the reference scenario in which the entire gaming market (both legal and illegal) was 'designed'. For the year 2022, only the online gambling market was surveyed due to a lack of usable data on gambling by country.
Research shows that the social costs of gambling will be far outweighed by the benefits in both 2019 and 2022.
In 2019, the balance between benefits minus costs was over 2 billion euros. The benefits were estimated at €3,2 billion while the costs were estimated at €1,2 billion. Consumer surplus accounted for about 70% of the benefits. On the cost side, the costs of gambling addiction account for 98%.
The data on the consequences of the Remote Gambling Act and therefore on the online gambling market in 2022 was also examined. Also in this case the balance is positive, of 516 million euros.
However data from 2019 and 2022 cannot be compared directly because country-specific gambling is not included in the latest calculation.
